S.F. slayings suspect avoided deportation in 2006 Court ruling blocked return to Vietnam after his prison stint

Video: Suspect Arrested in Killings of 5 in Calif. Home

The suspect in last week's slayings of five people in San Francisco was ordered deported in 2006 after he served a prison term for robbery and assault, but immigration authorities had to let him go free because his native Vietnam would not take him back, officials said Monday.

Binh Thai Luc, 35, of San Francisco was released under the terms of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said undocumented immigrants must be released after six months if their country of origin won't allow them to return, according to officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Luc is the only suspect to have been arrested in the killings in a home near City College of San Francisco. A source familiar with the investigation said authorities suspect the killer or killers may have been trying to collect on a gambling debt.

Investigators described a bloody scene, and Police Chief Greg Suhr said the victims - a couple in their 60s, their adult children and their son's girlfriend - had been bludgeoned and attacked with an unspecified "edged weapon." Luc is being held on suspicion of five counts of homicide and one count of use of a deadly weapon.

Deportation case

Immigration officials had been eager to deport Luc after he was sentenced to an 11-year, 4-month term at San Quentin State Prison for a 1998 conviction for robbing a Chinese restaurant in San Jose at gunpoint, according to agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen.

Flowers lay at the curb near the front of the house at 16 Howth Street which remains sealed and under watch by San Francisco Police on Sunday, March 25, 2012, the day the SFPD announced the arrest of a suspect, Binh Thai Luc, in the multiple slayings at the San Francisco, Calif., home. less Flowers lay at the curb near the front of the house at 16 Howth Street which remains sealed and under watch by San Francisco Police on Sunday, March 25, 2012, the day the SFPD announced the arrest of a ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close S.F. slayings suspect avoided deportation in 2006 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

Federal agents took him into custody when he was released from prison on Aug. 2, 2006, after serving eight years, and a judge ordered him deported a month later.

"However, because Vietnamese authorities declined to provide appropriate travel documents, Luc ultimately had to be released because of the Supreme Court's ruling" in a 2001 case, Zadvydas vs. Davis, Christensen said.

Officials at the Vietnam Consulate in San Francisco could not be reached for comment.

2006 release

Luc was released on Dec. 14, 2006, and continued to report to the federal immigration office in San Francisco, Christensen said.

"Unfortunately, there are some countries that are very difficult to remove people to, and Vietnam is one of those countries," Christensen said. "We had to follow the (Supreme Court) ruling."

Similar instances of illegal immigrants being released under the 2001 ruling, including one involving a man who went on to kill a police officer in Miami in 2008, have resulted in calls for federal legislation to amend the decision.

In his robbery case, Luc and another man held up a worker at a Chinese restaurant in San Jose on Sept. 7, 1996, according to court records. Luc pleaded no contest to robbery and assault with a firearm.

His co-defendant, Hoa Quang Ha, now 51, was convicted of robbery under the state's "three strikes and you're out" law and is still in prison.

Luc lives in a modest row house on Hayes Street in the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Nearby residents described him as polite and said he drove a truck and appeared to work in construction or plumbing.

They said SWAT teams descended on the neighborhood Sunday, when Luc was arrested.

"He seemed like a fine person, not a criminal," said a clerk at a nearby liquor store, who did not want to be identified because of the violent nature of the case. "Everybody on the street was shocked" when he was arrested.

She said Luc often came in to buy milk and cigarettes with his wife and two children.

Nobody answered the door of the Luc home Monday.

Victims' friends mourn

On Monday, the city medical examiner's office released the names of the victims found dead Friday in the home at 16 Howth St. They were Chinese immigrants Hua Shun Lei, 65, and his wife, Wan Yi Wu, 62; their children, Ying Xue Lei, 37, and her brother, Vincent Lei, 32; and Vincent Lei's girlfriend, Chia Huei Chu, 30.

Hua Lei worked at the upscale R&G Lounge restaurant in Chinatown, which closed for lunch Monday to host an employees-only memorial for him. He was a kitchen helper for 18 years, said owner Kinson Wong.

Wong said Lei immigrated to the United States 20 years ago from China, where he had been "a highly regarded math teacher." He said he was close with Lei, and they made time for a "midnight drink" once a week.

"He wasn't an employee," Wong said. "He was like my brother."

Wong said he was so distraught at the manner of his friend's death he hadn't slept for three nights.

Lei's wife, he said, worked at a Target store.

The home where the killings happened was owned by the couple's daughter, Ying Xue "Jess" Lei.

"She was a smart, quiet person, and this whole thing has shocked us," said Roxanne Albertoli of Qualitative Medical Systems in Emeryville, where Lei was a software engineer.