A Vietnamese man in Hanoi has been condemned to death for killing two young girls and raping a woman, with his parents serving suspended sentences for failing to report his crimes.

Dao Van Hung, a 32-year-old resident of Phu Xuyen District, Hanoi, was tried for murdering Thu T., 10, and Thi T., 9, who were his next-door neighbors, and sexually assaulting Nguyen T., 27, a local woman, according to the indictment by the Hanoi People’s Court on Wednesday.

The first crime came to light only after he was arrested for the second.

According to investigation results, Hung graduated from a major university in Hanoi, had employment for a certain time in the city before living with his mentally deranged elder brother in a house next to his parents’ on the outskirts of the capital.

On an evening of May 2016, he killed the two girls and buried their bodies in his back garden.

Hung said that he murdered them in order to find out why no local women had ever been interested in him.

His parents were all aware of his wrongdoing, for at the time they were crying over the children’s bodies lying on his bed, reproaching him for causing them to suffer, according to the crime record.

He begged his parents to shroud the killing in secrecy, over which they agreed.

The spot where the two girls were buried, in Phu Xuyen District, Hanoi. Photo: Tuoi Tre

In the other case, on the afternoon of November 19, 2016, Hung carried two bags containing three knives and ten pointed iron bars to a rice paddy of his village, and waited to rape any passing woman.

Ten minutes later, he blocked Nguyen T.’s way, and then dragged her to a nearby ditch for forced sex.

Seeing the victim’s family coming to her rescue, Hung threateningly brandished a knife and ran back to his house, on whose top he stood holding more knives and some of the metal bars until the end of the same day, when he was captured by police.

Hung admitted his child murder under police questioning, but was denying all the crime and rejecting multiple questions about the killing in court, while his parents declared their son was the culprit.

He also refused to apologize to the two girls’ families, saying that he was not involved whatsoever in the kids’ death.

Standing trial with Hung were his parents, who were convicted of harboring and failure to denounce him to police.

The parents admitted their guilt and asked to be granted a suspended sentence, with the court ruling that the father would receive 15 months’ probation and the mother 12 moths’ probation.

The father said that his two sons suffer from mental illness, for he was exposed to Agent Orange when he was a soldier during wartime.

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