Police in Hai Phong City, northern Vietnam, have arrested and launched legal proceedings against a 63-year-old local man for killing three, including his wife, and causing a house fire to conceal the crime.

Nguyen The Diem, 63, now faces the charge of murder, the police said on Friday.

Diem’s neighbors reported a fire at his house down Alley 98 on Khuc Thua Du Street in Le Chan District around 11:00 am on Thursday.

Firefighters arrived shortly after, but the fire engulfed the house.

Rescuers found Diem lying unconscious about five meters from the house’s gate and rushed him to a hospital for emergency treatment.

Before leaving, Diem said his wife, 65-year-old P.T.L., and a married couple living next door, 59-year-old N.V.L. and 62-year-old H.T.L., were still trapped in the house.

Firefighters managed to put out the blaze at around 12:30 pm, before getting into the house and finding the completely-burned bodies of the three mentioned people at 3:30 pm.

Realizing some illogical details in Diem’s account, police officers used professional measures and had him admitted that he had had a conflict with P.T.L. at around 5:00 am on the same day before getting into a brawl with the neighboring married couple, who tried to calm Diem and his wife down.

Diem thought that all three people wanted to beat him and used a wooden stick to hit their heads until all of them collapsed on the yard of Diem’s house.

Diem then dragged the three victims into the house and used gasoline to burn their bodies to erase all the traces and hide his crime.

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