Father who killed his four children must look at family photo every day until he's executed



Sentenced to death: Lam Luong threw his four children off an Alabama bridge to their deaths

A father who threw his four children to their deaths from a bridge has been ordered to look at a photo of his family until he dies.

Lam Luong was sentenced to death for the murders of his children by tossing them from an 80ft high bridge on the Alabama coast.

But Judge Charles Graddick also said Luong, 38, must look at a photo of his children every day while he waits on death row to be executed.

He rejected defence lawyers plea at the court in Mobile, Alabama, to show mercy to jobless Luong and instead spoke of the 'sheer terror' the children must have felt before they died.

The judge said the children were still alive when they hit the water despite the 80ft plunge.

Garrick surprised the court when said he would make it part of the sentence that prison officials had to hold up a photo of the children, aged from four months to two years, as a reminder of what he had done.

Luong was convicted in March of killing the children on January 7 2008.

The Vietnamese refugee killed the children after an argument with their mother, Kieu Phan, 23.

Luong, who was Phan's common-law husband, fathered three of the victims - Hannah Luong, two; Lindsey Luong, one; and Danny Luong, four months. Ryan Phan, three, was Phan's child with another man.

He had bundled them into his car and driven to the Dauphin Island Bridge which connects Alabama to Dauphin Island, near Mobile Bay in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tragic: Kieu Phan with three of her children - Lindsey Luong (left), Ryan Phan (centre) and Hannah Luong

Luong at first claimed the children had been kidnapped by two Asian women, but later confessed to killing the youngsters.

The bodies of three of the children were found within days of their deaths, while the body of the fourth child was found a couple of weeks later.

Luong will die by lethal injection. Lawyers said they planned to appeal against the death sentence which was recommended by the same jury that found him guilty of first degree murder.