Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong by Hue-Tam Ho Tai

Author:Hue-Tam Ho Tai [Ho Tai; Hue-Tam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-520-94611-8
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2010-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The day after the murder, a report landed at the police station on Catinat Street in Saigon.

Police Station, Third District, December 9, 1928:

We wish to report that today at 7h 15, we were advised by a Do van Cam, 36 years old, who works as accounting clerk at Painier Company and resides at 7 Barbier Street, that a crime was committed during the night against his neighbor residing at 5 Bar-bier Street and that his corpse was lying in the courtyard of said house. We therefore went immediately to the address given. It was a tenement comprising two rooms and a courtyard, which we immediately sealed off.

The entry door was pushed in, and the key was in the lock on the outside. We went into the first room, the living room, in which the only pieces of furniture were a small table and four chairs all made of rattan, a desk, and a bookshelf. On the table were an oil lamp and an inkpot. On the floor were scattered, burned papers and a torn newspaper. The desk drawers were open and empty. The door of the bookshelf was open, and the shelves were also empty. These two pieces of furniture seemed to have been opened and emptied of their contents.

In the second room was a cot with a mosquito net that was torn on one side. On the wooden floor by the bed, we noticed two puddles of blood; the one closest to the bed showed a footprint of about 0.25m in length. There were two more footprints near the door to the courtyard. This door was wide open; there was blood on the bolt and the jamb. In the middle of the door opening was an open, empty rattan valise. On the side of the camp bed we noticed some rolled-up pieces of mosquito netting soaked in petrol and a piece of candle. In the inner courtyard, at about one meter from the door, we observed the corpse of an individual lying on his back against the wall shared with No. 3. His right arm was bent behind his back and tied with a thick rope made of braided hemp of about one meter in length. The left arm was bent in front of the man’s chest. The corpse wore only a jacket; his lower body was totally naked. We noticed that the corpse bore a deep wound at his throat, six centimeters in length and 2 cm. in depth. The larynx was sliced through. On his chest were two wounds on each side. They were not very deep and were apparently made with a narrow-bladed knife, very likely a pocket knife. The victim’s face was partly burned as well as his hair; it seems that he was gagged with a piece of cloth soaked in petrol that was set on fire. Two pieces of cloth that did not burn look like linen with red stripes. The head and the top of the body lay in a puddle of brackish blood amid the calcified remnants of bloodied clothes.

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