Archive for the ‘Brenda Nguyen’ Category
Clayton Koepke Defended
This blog is about missing and murdered children and I believe my blog gives a voice to the victims. Why anyone would think it is OK to leave a comment defending a person who has been accused of or convicted of murdering a child is beyond my comprehension.
People who believe it is important enough to leave a comment defending their friend or loved one who has been convicted of murdering one of the children I have written about is also deserving of having their comment answered by me in a blog entry. Read the rest of this entry »
From Runaway to Jane Doe No. 07-1122
Local Phoenix, AZ news affiliate AZ.Family.com reported on February 19, 2007 that police had been called to a location in an alley because a dead body had been found. Police indicated that the body had no identification. At that point the body found became Jane Doe No. 07-1122. It then became the responsibility of law enforcement to first determine the identity of their latest Jane Doe and then to determine if the death was due to a homicide or by other means.
The first task for law enforcement was to determine if any of the reported missing person cases within their jurisdiction matched the Jane Doe. Their task was not an easy one because part of the missing person cases included the approximately 1200 open reported runaway cases in the Phoenix area.
Law Enforcement decided to reach out to the public to aid in their identification process.
The following information was released to the public including a composite sketch:
“She’s predominantly Hispanic descent, may have Asian influence. Detectives have taken photographs of manicured fingernails.”
“The victim took good care of herself and had well-manicured fingernails.”
“She may be between 12 and 18, Hispanic, Asian or biracial. They don’t know if she’s a runaway or from another country or a child who was forced into prostitution.”
After the sketch was released, I looked at my missing person website to see if I could possibly locate a match from the pictures on my site to the composite sketch. I found what I thought might be a possible match and I sent the link to the Phoenix police department via email. The girl I thought was a possible match turned out not to be the correct person. That person is pictured to the left of the composite sketch of the Jane Doe. Her name is Deniza Najera and she has been missing from Tucson, AZ since May 5, 2006. (Update: Deniza was located safe in April 2007 so her image was removed from this post.)
After a week or so and after not getting any solid leads the police released a photo of the girl on the Coroner’s website. I reluctantly went to look at the photo of the deceased girl. I realized that I did not recognize her as any runaways or other missing girls on my site.
However, a family friend did recognize the photo posted on the Coroner’s website as that of her friend’s daughter, Brenda Nguyen, and she notified Brenda’s mother of the possibility that the Jane Doe in the news was most likely her runaway daughter.
One news article stated that Brenda had run away with her friend Arlene Cota in mid-January.
According to Brenda’s mother, her daughter returned to the home in early February. Then on another day soon after Brenda’s return, she told her mother she was going to the local drugstore but she never returned. Her mother figured she had run away again but she did not report her daughter as a runaway until February 11, 2007. When she filed the report with police she did not provide a photograph of Brenda to police.
I had a photo of Arlene Cota on my website. If Brenda’s mother had provided a photo of her daughter to police when she reported her as a runaway then I would have had her picture on my website as well.
Soon after Brenda’s body was located Arlene called her mother and told her she wanted to come home.
Arlene said she and Brenda had been staying with friends then at a local park. The last time she saw her was two weeks ago.
“She said you should go home, too. I said all right,” Arlene said. “I just hugged her, told her to keep in touch and then she was like all right and we went our separate ways.”
Arlene said she had no idea Brenda was dead.
“I had heard a couple of days ago that she got raped and they dumped her in a Dumpster,” Arlene said. “I didn’t think it was true.”
Arlene lied.
I am thinking that after Arlene decided to come home the Phoenix police were very interested in speaking with her since they were close friends and had been living on the streets together. Police say Arlene is cooperating with their investigation, however, she still may face charges regarding Brenda’s murder.
Four adults were arrested and first charged with child abuse. Those charges have been upgraded to include negligent homicide and abandoning a dead body.
According to investigators the following is how Brenda Nguyen went from being a runaway to being a Jane Doe.
Brenda had indeed run away from home. She and Arlene Cota allegedly found some people who let them stay in their apartment.
On Feb. 18, Brenda, a 97-pound eighth-grader, was urged by the suspects to drink five glasses of vodka in less than 30 minutes so that Koepke could have sex with her, according to police documents.
Brenda did what she was told to do and in the process she passed out and soon had difficulty breathing and then began to have seizures. At one point, someone tried to give her CPR and it is not clear at what point this CPR was administered. They all eventually went to sleep and when they awakened Brenda was dead.
One might ask “Why didn’t these people call paramedics or take her to the hospital?” Well, they were afraid because the girls they were allowing to stay in their home were underage, runaways and they had supplied them with alcohol. They covered their collective behinds at the expense of a young girl’s life and ultimately their own sorry lives.
Now, faced with a dead body in their home it is alleged that Armando Hernandez and Clayton Koepke decided the best thing to do was to take the body and dump it somewhere. So it is alleged they carried Brenda’s body down stairs, placed it in a vehicle and drove around Phoenix looking for a good spot to dump her. The alley was just a spot that looked good and did not have any significance. So they took her body out of the car, placed it in the alley and drove away.
The Accused and the charges:
I have to admit they do look like a motley crew and I would not want to meet up with anyone of them. All face felony charges each carrying a sentence of 30 years or more in prison.
I looked up some general information regarding what types of charges these four adults might have faced if they had gone ahead and called 9-1-1 or at least left Brenda on the grounds of some hospital.
If it was found that they provided Brenda and Arlene with alcohol they would have been charged with providing alcohol to a minor. The following is a quote from the website of Cheryl A. Brown, L.L.C., Attorney at Law regarding what to expect if you are charged with providing alcohol to a minor:
Penalties for Providing Alcohol in Arizona
Arizona law is very specific about providing alcoholic beverages to minors. If convicted, penalties can include:
- Maximum fine of around $2,500 plus an 80 percent surcharge
- Maximum jail sentence of 6 months
On a first offense, the likely outcome is a fine of several hundred dollars, and a suspended jail sentence, as well as a Class 1 misdemeanor record.
In addition to criminal penalties, you may be liable in civil litigation if the person to whom you provided alcohol is injured in a car accident or other alcohol-related accident.
In retrospect the above possible sentence pales in comparison to the charges these four are now facing. The sad part is most likely even if they would have been found guilty of providing the alcohol as well as harboring runaways most likely many of these charges would have been eligible for a plea agreement.
I am wondering if the accused have prior records which also caused them to avoid having contact with authorities. Also there is the possibility that there is more truth to Arlene’s statement made to the media regarding Brenda’s rape; maybe Brenda was raped before she succumbed to the alcohol poisoning.
Brenda Nguyen does have a Myspace.com site. I am not going to provide the link to her site for a couple of different reasons. One reason is that I do not want people to judge her.
My opinion is that Brenda Nguyen was just like any little 13-year-old girl who is struggling to fit-in to this thing we call life. And just like other girls her age who are struggling to fit-in she made some poor choices. It is my opinion that Brenda did not have proper guidance in her home and lacked the proper supervision to keep her safe on the Internet. I will leave it at that.
Arlene Cota also has a Myspace.com page but her page is set to private. Her mother mentioned in one interview that Arlene is receiving some negative emails from other members of that social networking site who were friends with Brenda. They are asking Arlene why she did not do more to protect her friend. Arlene’s mother claims she is about ready to pull the plug on the computer.
Even if Arlene is never charged with her part in Brenda’s murder I believe she will always have that little voice inside of her head asking her what Brenda’s friends are asking her in the emails.
Why didn’t you do anything to save your friend’s life?
Why did you let her die?
Why didn’t you call police and leave an anonymous tip that her body was left in an alley?
Why did you leave it up to some poor, unsuspecting person to walk down that alley and find your friend’s lifeless body?
If I would have been the one dying would Brenda have called 9-1-1 or would she have let me die too?
Brenda made some poor decisions in her short life but it is to be expected because she was young. The last poor decision she made in her very short life was to trust what these adults told her.
The adults so briefly involved in her life also made poor decisions.
- Deciding to allow two runaways to stay at their home
- Deciding it would be OK to give a 13-year-old alcohol
- Deciding that sex with a minor is OK especially if said minor is drunk
- Deciding to not call for help to prevent bodily damage or death
- Deciding to dump Brenda’s body like an unwanted piece of old furniture
- Deciding to make her Jane Doe No. 07-1122
Brenda Nguyen is being laid to rest today. Her mother does not have the money to cover all of the expenses. Information about where to donate funds is currently unavailable because the newspaper website is down. I will try to post an update with the information later today.
If there is a trial I will be covering that part of the story in my other blog – The End of the Story.
All parties have plead guilty and have been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing.
Ana Hernandez, age 45, plead guilty to child abuse on 01/18/08; sentenced to 2.5 years.1
Armando Hernandez, age 19, plead guilty to manslaughter on 02/29/08; sentenced to 7 years.2
Scott Franze, age 39, entered a plea of guilty to child abuse; awaiting sentencing.3
Clayton Koepke, age 19, entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter; awaiting sentencing.4
I am surprised the younger people in this case have plead guilty to more severe charges and will most likely serve longer prison terms. It is my belief that all parties should have been charged with manslaughter and received the same sentence.
Sources:
Mother Deals with Loss of a Child After Teen Identified: [Source]
Four Arrested in Apparent Alcohol-poisoning Death of Phoenix Girl: [Source]
Four Charged with Negligent Homicide in Runaway’s Death: [Source]
- ‘Teen Sentenced In Alcohol Poisoning,’ KPHO.com, March 1, 2008. [↩]
- Ibid. [↩]
- Ibid. [↩]
- Ibid. [↩]
