From left: Alexander Hung Tran (Salt Lake County Jail), Heike Poike and baby Lyrik Poike (Premier Funeral Services) and Dakota Smith (Peel Funeral Home).
A 42-year-old Utah man will spend the rest of his days behind bars for murdering three people, including a 2-month-old girl in a baby bouncer, after he developed an obsession with the baby's mom.
Alexander Hung Tran, 42, on Friday received three life sentences in prison for the shooting deaths of 63-year-old Heike Poike, 2-month-old Lyrik Poike and 29-year-old Dakota Smith, the Salt Lake County District Attorney said. A jury convicted Tran in August of three counts of first-degree felony aggravated murder.
Cops responded to the Salt Lake City home on Sept. 18, 2015, after Poike did not pick up her grandson from school. Officers noticed the back door was open and went inside, where they discovered the three bodies. They found Tran in the basement armed with a gun and took him into custody.
Prosecutors said the Poike family had recently moved into the home, which was owned by Tran's mother. The family stayed on the upper level of the home while Tran lived in the basement. Tran became "fixated" on Poike's daughter and Lyrik's mother, Ashley Poike. He sent her "increasingly obsessive" text messages professing his desire to marry her.
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Tensions grew after Ashley Poike, who was linked to an unrelated child sex trafficking case, was jailed and Tran's mother objected to the family living there.
According to a courtroom report from local NBC affiliate KSL, Tran shot Smith, a Poike family friend, four times as he sat on a couch. Then he turned the gun on Lyrik who was sleeping in her baby bouncer. Finally, he shot Heike Poike, who had tried to stop him from killing her granddaughter.
Tran reportedly fired some 12 shots, meaning he had to reload the gun at least once during his rampage.
"This was not accidental … This was intentional and knowing," said prosecutor Morgan Vedejs, per KSL.
Ashley Poike was emotional during her victim impact statement.
"We're all just suffering still. And it just breaks my heart that my sister Brittany never got to meet my daughter," she reportedly said. "There are things I think about now, like how my daughter would look … what she would be wearing, if she would act like me. Things like that, that I will never get to know."
The case was delayed for years because of Tran's competency issues and other challenges. Tran's attorneys asked for a sentence of 25 years to life, arguing he may be able to be rehabilitated with the proper counseling and medication.
But 3rd District Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills didn't buy it, saying Tran showed "absolutely no remorse, no responsibility whatsoever."
"Obviously, [it was] an astounding and staggering crime that occurred here," she reportedly said.
District Attorney Sim Gill was pleased with the verdict.
"We applaud the judge's decision that ensures the defendant will spend the rest of his life behind bars. We hope that the victim's family feels that they have received some measure of justice for the loss of their mother, child, and friend. The three life sentences reflect the level of accountability our community demands when an abhorrent crime like this one is committed in Salt Lake County," Gill said in a statement.