thanh van phan › deadmonton 2007 › deadmonton › edmonton

WARNING

Thanh Van Phan, 19, was stabbed to death November 11th, 2007.

Phan was Edmonton's twenty-seventh homicide victim of the year.

Case status is open and active.

At about 3:45 a.m. November 11th, 2007 officers were called to the Twilight After Hours Club at 10018 105 Street to respond to reports of a disturbance. Moments later news of a dead man being dropped at a hospital emergency entrance came in.

"There were pools of blood, some blood evidence, on the street and on the sidewalk, and a few minutes later we got a call from the University hospital that someone had dropped off a male who was deceased," said Insp. Terry Rocchio.

"EPS got a call from the U of A hospital saying a deceased man in his twenties was left at the emergency entrance," added Rocchio.

The dead man was later described as being 19 years old. Police withheld his name and cause of death pending notification of next of kin and an autopsy scheduled for later in the week. There were later indications the man was known to authorities and that he died as the result of being stabbed.

According to 630 CHED radio, people scattered when the victim fell to the sidewalk.

The station said friends rushed him to hospital but left before police got there, and that an attempt was made to save the man but he died from massive blood loss a short time after he arrived.

However Insp. Rocchio said it was unclear if the dead man was abandoned at the hospital entrance or was escorted in by others.

Felicia Kizan was at the hospital when the man was brought in. She spoke to CTV Edmonton cameras.

"A lot of blood, he was full of it, yeah. And his friend was full of blood too."

"The guy was in his wheelchair and he was kind of slouched back and his head was way back and he looked dead on the scene."

The well-known operator of the Chez Pierre strip club just north of the Twilight shook his head when he arrived to see police on the street.

“Another murder is not what this town needs,” Pierre Cochard said. When Cochard noticed a second pool of blood on the steps of his club, police extended their crime scene tape to include the sidewalk in front of Chez Pierre.

At a later news conference Insp. Terry Rocchio recapped events.

"Our members responded to the scene. They did not find any combatants or victims at the scene but we did find a large quantity of blood in the parking lot and on the sidewalk and even on the roadway."

"They began investigating the area and shortly after we got a call from the University Hospital that a deceased 19-year-old male was dropped off by some people in the emergency section."

"There's a number of people that were in the nightclub and there's some witnesses from the hospital that they're currently interviewing and trying to piece together what happened."

Sources indicated police weren't receiving much co-operation from the people they spoke to. When asked if after-hours clubs were a concern for police, Rocchio responded

"People do come late at night and it does tax our resources if they start causing problems or there are fights – so we do have some issue with them."

Records indicate the Twilight Club was properly licensed with the city.

For much of Remembrance Day 105th Street was closed off as forensic technicians scoured the area for clues.

Forty-eight hours after the slaying, police reported little progress in solving the case.

"We are hitting roadblocks with people," homicide Staff Sgt. Lorne Pubantz told the Edmonton Sun. "We are certainly appealing to them to give (police) as much information as they can."

On November 14th, 2007 police released the identity of the man.

19-year-old Thanh Van Phan died of sharp force trauma. Gang activity had not been confirmed, police said.

"They're not saying that this is gang related," said a police spokesman. "They're still investigating to confirm whether he was officially involved with gangs."

Police offered little else in the way of new information: no suspect description was released, nor how many people were involved in the altercation or how many times Phan had been stabbed.

The Edmonton Journal was first to publish an interview with Phan's family. The teen's father was too grief-stricken to say much about his loss.

"I am so sad that I can't say anything," he said.

Phan had at times studied in a local high school outreach program, and recently moved to Edmonton from Calgary after living in Vancouver.

Funeral services for the teen were held November 15th, 2007.

Those with information about the city's latest murder are asked to contact Edmonton police at 423-4567, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or online at www.tipsubmit.com - a secure tip submission web site.

The Twilight After Hours Club is in the basement of the former Red Light Lounge – the scene of Edmonton's first-ever triple homicde on October 29th, 2006.

Jacey Sydney Pinnock, 27, Thomas Tipo Orak, 18, and Dave Persaud, 21, were each shot to death inside the club. Dwayne Anthony Nelson, 22, was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault causing bodily harm.

Nelson faced a preliminary hearing in September 2007 and was scheduled to go to trial in October 2008.

The Red Light Lounge was reported to have closed after the triple-slaying. Previously known as the 1001 Nights Nightclub, the Climaxx Club and the Decadance Martini Bar, the site has seen parking lot shootings, gang assaults, and the molestation of two under-aged girls in 1996.

The Twilight Club, in operation for over four years, is a separate business from the lounges and bars that have occupied the space above it.

The alcohol-free club usually opens on weekends at about 2:00 a.m. and has a different DJs playing house, electro-house and trance music. Manager James O'Malley told the Edmonton Sun what he knew.

"There was an altercation in the parking lot behind our building around 1:00 a.m. Around 3:00 a.m., someone told me about a big pool of blood on the sidewalk outside the front. I notified our security and that's when the police showed up."

Police questioned O'Malley for nearly three hours and showed him a picture of the victim. The manager said he was of Asian descent but didn't recognize the man.

"I got the impression the police knew who this guy was," said O'Malley.

While he could not confirm if the victim had been in the club before being slain, O'Malley was sure the altercation took place entirely outside his club.

"Forensics came in here and didn't find a thing. It looks like it all happened outside," O'Malley said.

"They were checking for blood spatters – checking our hands, looking if there was anything on them and our clothes," the club's owner, Sang Nguyen, told the Edmonton Journal.

Nguyen said everything appeared normal when he arrived at around 3:30 a.m. He said about 50 people were inside dancing when about half an hour later one of his employees said there was a problem.

"My manager told me there was a pool of blood outside and the cops were there and around 4:30 a.m. he told me the cops were shutting us down.

"All I heard was someone got stabbed and a guy was on the way to the hospital," Nguyen said. "I'm just kind of shocked and really feel bad for that person's parents."

Twilight Club security staff are stationed at the club's entrance, down some stairs from the building's front door. According to Nguyen they didn't notice any problems at the time the incident.

O'Malley said the club is now thinking about installing video surveillance equipment and improved lighting for the rear parking lot.

"(You) can't blame us for incidents that occur outside of our premises," Phillipe Lam, another Twilight manager, told the Sun.

"We have qualified security staff on site to make sure the patrons in the club are safe. But once you leave, the risks are entirely yours, much like it is walking down some other street at 4 a.m."

A staff member of a nearby business told the Sun he heard shouts coming from outside the club shortly before police arrived.

“It looks like everyone scattered before the cops showed up,” he said. “I was around when the triple murder happened there too … I'm not sure this is the greatest part of town to be working late nights.”

Directly across from the Twilight Club is the First Presbyterian Church. Remembrance Day church-goers saw a familiar scene: yellow police tape and evidence of violence.

“So it looks like another (young person) was killed there, eh? They should shut these places down – new names don't fool anyone,” Sam Ferguson told the Edmonton Sun.

“How many people have to be killed in these after-hours places before the city stops licensing the same people to open old clubs under new names?”

CTV Edmonton spoke to a couple walking in front of the Presbyterian Church.

"I don't know who owns it but it's clearly trouble. Obviously there's drugs involved, there's alcohol involved ... there's weapons and violence ... and it's sad."

"I think things have changed – we've lost our innocence and I think we lost it some time ago."

"Some people will say they want the city to close that club down."

Twilight owner Sang Nguyen later said his club was just weeks away from installing a security camera system when Phan was murdered.

"I got the line installed, but didn't put the cameras up yet. I should, maybe in a couple of weeks," he told the Journal.

The cameras would monitor the dance floor, the entrance and exit – but not the parking lot.

"If you look at the other after-hours (clubs) ... they have cameras in their parking lot and it's the same thing: the cops are always there," Nguyen said.

Police discovered the Twilight Club's lot was also stained with blood.

deadmonton 2007 - thanh van phan