Snapped: Women Who Murder - Dephne Wright

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

Stories of mysticism come to the front while authorities investigate the murders of a Texas couple.Season 30 Episode 22Originally aired: Mar 13, 2022Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I was in shock. I walked out of the bedroom not able to speak, not able to get on the radio for help. I just stood there. I've been in homicide 21 years. This was one of the worst I've seen. They were hogtied with duct tape. Their head and mouth were duct tape.

When their American dream turned into a nightmare, they looked to their beliefs for a way out. They never really got out of the hole that they were in. The couple were firm believers in an old-style mysticism from their homeland, and they thought there were actually people out there that could lift curses when they needed good fortune. That's what she advertised,

that she could take bad curses off. Could their spiritual savior be responsible for such an unspeakable crime? They just continued to pour their money into the rituals. They owed somewhere between $250,000 and $280,000. And then she told my uncle, if they don't pay up, I want them dead. None of this would have happened if she wouldn't have been so selfish and greedy. Was she?

I had the impression that you were going to kill the couple. She was. MUSIC MUSIC June 10, 2012, Arlington, Texas. At 7.29 a.m., emergency dispatchers receive a call from 38-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Chau Tran, asking for a welfare check on his elderly in-laws. Can you give me their names? My dad's name is L-O-N-G. Last name, N-G-U-Y-E-N.

He is 70-something right now. Okay. Oh, my God. You know what? Him, my son, and my wife, they said they lived in there. They say that they saw everything fall down. OK. I'll let our officers know.

Worried, Chow sent his teenage son to go knock on the door, which he did, but there was no answer. And the family began to gather, and they became increasingly worried. Chow's family thought that something was wrong. They noticed that the window at their residence was open. Things just didn't look right.

Too terrified to go in the house and check on their own family members, they wait outside for police to arrive. I very quickly got dispatched. And when I got there, right away I knew it didn't look like your typical welfare check. This appeared to be an entire family that was standing outside of an apartment and that seemed a little off at first.

Also, it being that early in the morning, we don't normally get welfare checks that early. Upon entering the residence, there are all the telltale signs of a burglary. The responding officer has noted that the apartment appeared to be in disarray. I'm calling out. There's no answer. I know there's no one in the living room, the kitchen or the bathroom. The only room that I haven't checked is the bedroom. After a quick check of the bedroom, Officer Weller doesn't see anyone

and is convinced the home is empty. When I got there, I wasn't focused on the state of the room. I did not notice anything that stuck out to me. I was solely focused at that point, finding the family, making sure everybody was okay. So I'm thinking, great, everybody's fine, everybody's healthy, they went out for a walk. Still with my flashlight in hand, I go to turn around to leave the bedroom. And at that time, I see hand smudges on the wall next to a very small closet.

So I hesitated for a moment. Everything inside of me told me not to open that door. But I would not be doing my job if I did not check that closet. I opened that closet door. I saw two people inside that closet. I knew it was the mom and the dad that I was looking for. They were hog-tied with duct tape. Their head and mouth were duct tape.

There was blood everywhere. In that split second, I knew they were dead. With my 14 years of experience, this is definitely the most gruesome, brutal scene I have ever seen. I was in shock. I walked out of the bedroom to the living room, and I stood in the middle of the living room. Finally, I was able to get on my radio, and I requested a supervisor and a crime scene unit.

and a crime scene unit. When Arlington homicide investigators arrive, they too are stunned by the heinous crime. It appeared that the couple had been beaten with some kind of blunt force object. It was a very violent and bloody scene. They were grabbing walls as they had been taken to the back room. There's evidence of throwing about furniture in the living room too as well. Ran second of compact discs.

What crossed my initial mind was a robbery gone bad. But even for a robbery, the crime is exceedingly violent. I've been in homicide 21 years. This was one of the worst I've seen. Due to the nature of how the victims were found, I can see blunt force trauma to the forehead. I can see markings that look to be possible hammer, but I wasn't sure.

Then the amount of duct tape that was used on the victim's face all the way up to their forehead. The crime in and of itself is a heinous, horrific crime. Who would do this? You have to say to yourself, who would be so cold that they would, you know, brutally murder an elderly couple? They're very nice couple.

They never bothered nobody. Everybody loved them. I don't think they have any enemy. When Long Nguyen and Hong Lee immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 2000, they brought with them their time-honored traditions and their beloved family. They decided to pick up their stakes and move to Arlington, Texas with their three children to pursue the American dream. They were a prominent Asian family. They had lots of ties to the community.

Arlington is one of those big cities in Tarrant County that you really do have a good mixture of different cultures. You've got a large Vietnamese community there. The first way of the immigrants came after 1975, after the fall of Saigon. Some of them adapted society very well. The parents tried to carry their heritage from Vietnam to America. This area during the 80s and the late 90s, there is a lot of Vietnamese people decide to live there. They study the area very well.

That's why they choose Arlington to be a good place for them to do business and create a family. Long and Hong saw an opportunity to create a legacy for their three children and grandchildren. When Long and Wong arrived to Texas, they started a commercial sewing business. And they enlisted the help of their son-in-law, Chow, to help run it. Chow was the one who spoke the best English, so he was kind of a face of the business, and he dealt with a lot of the contractors and a lot of the different people.

After nearly a decade of rebuilding their lives in the U.S., their American dream came true when they secured a lucrative contract to make garments for a commercial giant. They actually had contracts with places like Disney. But by 2011, the family's good fortune had all but run out. They had lost the contract with Disney, and the business started going down. The family believed that the string of bad luck

required a traditional Vietnamese solution. For a couple thousand years, the Asian people believed the lucky god and the money protection god. If you pray them, you will have more customers. Most of the time, they invite the spiritual advisor. Spiritual advisor only need them when their family has something major, major issue like going to divorce,

might be going to bankruptcy, or might be getting trouble with the law. They need protection and healing. The couple were firm believers in an old-style spiritualism, mysticism, from their homeland. And they thought there were actually people out there that could lift those curses when they needed good fortune. Searching through a local Vietnamese newspaper, Chau Tran and his mother-in-law found an ad for a spiritual advisor 250 miles away in Houston.

She advertised that she could take bad curses off, she could put curses on, she could do all of that. They believe that she is the right one to protect them or help them to recover from the bad business. Encouraged by his mother-in-law, Hong Lee, Chau contacted the spiritual advisor and asked for her help. She agreed to meet Chau at her Houston home for a consultation. She performed a ritual and they were incredibly hopeful that she could turn the business around. And they thought that things were going to be looking up. But one year later, instead of conjuring good luck, a dark tragedy has befallen the family.

On June 10th, Arlington police have just found Long and Hong murdered in their apartment. It appeared that an attack happened as soon as they walked into their apartment. Something did happen at the front door because there was blood there. There was blood on the carpet. There was blood on blood there. There was blood on the carpet. There was blood on the couch. There was blood on the table. There was blood on the walls. There was blood everywhere.

While Arlington homicide detectives see evidence of a burglary gone wrong, there are other clues as to who might have committed the brutal attack. There was a plate of crushed prescription pills on the coffee table as if to snort. There was a marijuana cigarette. But to detectives, it's a blue bandana wrapped around a beer bottle that seems almost like a calling card. Arlington did have some very active Vietnamese gangs. They were known to extort money.

This was a light blue bandana. So I had to consult with the gang unit to see if they had some knowledge of it. And they did have some knowledge of the color of the bandana. I had everything to believe that it was gang activity. of the bandana. I had everything to believe that it was gang activity. Coming up, detectives believe the evidence is too good to be true. Most gang members, they don't do violent crime.

Sometimes things seem too perfect. It was just not a robbery gone bad. We theorized that it was staged. Could a financial windfall point closer to home? I did question who were the beneficiaries. One was Chow Tran himself. On June 10, 2012, in Arlington, Texas, police discover husband and wife Long Nguyen and Hong Lee brutally murdered in their bedroom closet. After finding evidence of gang activity left at the scene, detectives remain skeptical

given the severity of the crime. The way they killed the victim lie on this case. There was a beer bottle with a bandana around it, giving the impression that it was a gang-related incident, that they were leaving their colors to kind of take responsibility for it. It was too perfect of a crime scene. It was too set up to the point where I had everything to believe that it was gang activity. So we theorized that it was staged. Other initial items that we found that we thought we can send off to get immediate tests were taken, such as the marijuana cigarettes for DNA purposes. They took hair fibers, DNA.

They took swabs of the blood to see if there were any dual samples. They processed the duct tape to see if there's fingerprints or evidence. Investigators next speak with the family to try and learn more about the victims. Clearly rattled by the discovery of their loved ones, there is only one family member able to speak with detectives, 38-year-old Chow Tran. I initially interviewed Chow Tran, who's the son-in-law. Chow being a primary spokesperson for the family because he speaks English. Chow informed Detective Stewart that the night of this offense, they were all at a birthday

party and they were celebrating his father-in-law's birthday. According to Chow, his in-laws seemed to have a good time and stayed until 10.30. They received a ride home from another family member, and that was the last time they were seen alive. I asked, did they have a lot of money around the house and things of that nature? Vietnamese tend to carry money at home. They don't trust the American banks.

Chau says that if they did have money at home, it wasn't much. Chow said the sewing business was never great. It was never thriving. And they thought that perhaps it was cursed. Despite their financial stress, Chow has no idea how that could have led to their horrific deaths. I asked him every possible question as far as possible. Enemies, enemies as far as the business is concerned,

family members, anybody who would want to harm this couple. No one could think of any reason to want this couple dead. They were sweet and they were generous and they were hardworking and they had great ties to the community. and they were generous and they were hardworking and they had great ties to the community. On June 11th, 2012, detectives attend the couple's autopsy at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office. It appeared that there was blunt force trauma

to the victim's head, struck with some sort of object at the time, don't know what type of object that was because nothing was found there at the crime scene. But that's not what killed him. Her face had been wrapped in 25 feet of duct tape. His face had been wrapped in 10 feet of duct tape. And they suffocated. The cause of death is unsettling, even for the seasoned homicide investigators.

Just the amount of pain that it took to die in that fashion, that to me is like holding your breath until you die. So that, I've always thought just how painful it was for both victims. Though detectives aren't convinced the incident is gang-related, they can't rule out the possibility and are hopeful the partial forensic evidence they collected leads to a suspect. If you look at the extensiveness of the duct tape and how it was applied,

and to what extent it was applied, one would have to believe that the intent was to kill them. It was just not a robbery gone bad. The whole point was to kill the victims. Gang activity could have been a theory. It just seems very personal to both victims. As detectives conclude their briefing with the coroner, they receive a phone call that instantly captures their attention. Detective Stewart got a call from the insurance company after the victim's death. And routinely, the insurance companies

will call when there is a policy over a certain amount. And their insurance policy was at least a million. I did question the insurance company as far as who were the beneficiaries. One was Chow Tran himself. On June 13, 2012, detectives meet with Chow at the Arlington police station and ask him about his in-laws' business

and sizable insurance policy. He told me that because the business was in their name, they wanted to make sure that they had the ability to carry on the business if one of the family members were to pass away. When it comes to their whereabouts the night of the murders, Chow and the rest of his family have airtight alibis. No, no, no, no. They come to my house from four, three, around to five.

We eat and we sit together and we play card until it's 10 o'clock, 10th over 10 o'clock, you know? So they stayed there until about 10? 10th, 10th over 10. He cooperated with answering all questions I had as far as timelines of where they were at the time, the party, who was there. So I didn't have anything definitive to say that he was a suspect at the time, the party, who was there. So I didn't have anything definitive to say that he was a suspect at the time.

Police collect DNA and fingerprint samples from Chow and the other family members and compare it to the evidence found at the scene. We were able to gather a DNA profile from the marijuana cigarettes. They were hopeful that that would be the link, that would be the linchpin to the killer, that that would lead them to whoever committed these heinous crimes. But when the results come back, neither the DNA nor prints match any of Long and Hong's family members, or any of the other profiles saved in the FBI's combined DNA index system.

So it was very disappointing when we got the DNA sample back and they were not in CODIS. So then it could be an adult who just never committed a crime before, and therefore not in CODIS as well. There is another possibility, as CODIS does not account for a certain age group of criminal offenders, minors. One of the suspicions from the homicide detective was that it was a juvenile whose DNA is not in the system yet. Without a DNA match, police are left to search for any possible lead, but none materialize. After interviewing and swabbing probably 50 to 60 people, family members, a lot of neighbors, we still did not get any results as far as a possible lead on a suspect at that time. They left no stone unturned, but for at least two years,

there was no leads on this case. And the case turns cold. There was no movement on it whatsoever. And then in 2015, it sprang back to life. Coming up, a bizarre crime sparks a new lead for detectives. Him stealing that horse started this whole process of us finally realizing who actually killed the victims. And a jailhouse interview reveals some explosive information. The plan was to make it look like like thugs or gang mingers end up

committing the crime, but it was an inside job. This is the emergency broadcast system. A ballistic missile threat has been detected inbound to your area. Your phone buzzes and you look down to find this alert. What do you do next? Maybe you're at the grocery store, or maybe you're with your secret lover, or maybe you're robbing a bank.

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Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. On October 12th 2015, over three years after the unsolved murders of Hong Li and Long Wen, the Arlington Police Department receives new information on the cold case. In 2015, police received word that they had a DNA match on the blunt that was recovered from the crime scene in 2012. Willie Guillory, who stole a horse out of Houston, and of course that's a felony in the state of Texas, that turned out at the time of the actual homicide, this kid was 16 years old. Being a minor with no prior felonies, Willie's DNA hadn't been in the CODIS system at the time of the murders in 2012. But in 2015, he became both an adult and a felon, which added his name to the DNA database.

You have to have a felony conviction in order for your profile to even be put into CODIS. And so him stealing that horse started this whole process. On October 17, 2015, Willie Guillory is brought to the Arlington Police Department for questioning, but not for the murders. He was in violation, not checking in with his parole officer. We in turn made contact with him and we made arrests based on the violation of his parole and not the murder at the time. I wasn't there.

Are you saying your DNA was there? I don't know if it was. I wasn't because I wasn't nowhere around Arlington. I promise you. I have... I have food. That's why I'm going to check your DNA again because maybe we made a mistake. It don't mean nothing but DNA, people can take your DNA and do sh-t while you sleep. When I explained to him the nature of the DNA, how DNA worked, how and why we believe he was inside that apartment,

he immediately broke down, started crying. He confessed. He said, yes, I was there. Yes, I did it, but I didn't do it alone. Willie says that in 2012, he was 16 years old and living with his uncle, 49-year-old Bobby Guillory. Bobby said, you're going to go help me do this thing up in Arlington, Texas, and then took Willie along. Willie's life was such that he didn't feel like he had much choice.

Willie says that on June 9, 2012, he and his uncle made the three-hour drive to Arlington. He also claims that his uncle had a key to Hong and Long's apartment in order to stage a burglary. This is exactly how it all happened. The plan that my uncle ended up coming up with was throw stuff around, help them set up some evidence to make it look like the thugs or gang mingers ended up committing the crime. We had beer bottles, a blue bandana, pills, marijuana. He actually left a marijuana cigarette, or the remains of a marijuana cigarette.

He smoked a little bit of it. By leaving the marijuana cigarette to stage this, that was the very evidence that linked up to Willie Gillory. Once the couple came home, I ran out. Ended up running towards the door, turning to start the lady from getting out or making any noise. Then my uncle ended up snatching up the man and ended up beating the man. I didn't start the lady from getting out or making any noise. Then my uncle in the stanchion up the man and end up beating the man.

He said, I know he hit him with something similar to some type of blunt bat or something like that, was used to incapacitate the victims. Willie then says that after Hong and Long stopped fighting back, he and his uncle used the duct tape to keep them from escaping. He ended up telling me, he helped me grab them, put them in the bag. Once I took them to the bag, he ended up duct taping them.

He said, help me transfer them from the room to the closet. And that's where we left them, and then we left. With such a stark admission of guilt, detectives ask why Bobby and Willie had targeted the couple. That's when Willie reveals that it was a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by a friend of his uncle's named Daphne Wright. orchestrated by a friend of his uncle's named Daphne Wright. I met Daphne through my uncle Bobby. My uncle went into her office and started talking to her,

and she said that people owed her money, and she wanted them to pay up. And then she told my uncle, if they don't pay up, I want them dead. At that point, Willie says, And then she told my uncle, if they don't pay up, I want them dead. At that point, Willie says, yes, I did this. I was used by Daphne. Daphne was the driving force behind this. She used us all.

It was an inside job. Daphne and giving the key to Bobby to get in the house. With this new information, investigators charge Willie Guillory with murder. But they also need to verify his version of events. Their next moves are to locate Bobby Guillory and create a profile of Daphne Wright. Now we know that it's not some random gang. It's not some random people. We then start the investigation on Daphne, piecing things together.

Police learned Daphne Wright was a spiritual advisor based in Houston, who basically offered to turn businesses around and to bring good fortune to families. People would come, you know, purchase her services and use her. And apparently she was quite popular and had a lot of business. When detectives reach out to Chow to see if he knows Daphne Wright, they're met with a suspicious response. When I do try to talk to Chow, he now directs me to his attorney, whose attorney says that if you need to speak to him,

you need to come through me. We believe he has wind that now I'm on to Daphne, and he knows Daphne is a connection to him. Detectives now have multiple leads, but in order to bridge the connection between Chow and Daphne, they need to talk to Willie's uncle, Bobby Guillory.

Willie was the catalyst at first. Bobby was the next piece of the puzzle. Coming up, detectives move on Bobby Guillory. But what they find is another pawn in a bigger game. I was scared. I really was. Daphne wanted her money. But was she truly the mastermind? How did Daphne get the keys?

From you. Chow Tran? Yeah. On December 16, 2015, detectives traveled to Katy, Texas, to the address of 52-year-old Bobby Guillory, one of the two men alleged to have participated in the brutal murders of Long Nguyen and Hong Lee. Police arrested Bobby on two counts of capital murder, just like his nephew, Willie. While at first Bobby refuses to talk, it's not long before he changes his tune.

I went down with a search warrant for his DNA profile. This, you know, probably got him thinking, maybe they got something on me. And then he actually confessed to the offense. Bobby did not have a criminal history at all so before this offense occurred, he's never been in trouble with the law. Like Willie, Bobby also puts the blame solely

on 44-year-old Daphne Wright, who Bobby claims orchestrated the hit. So, my question to you is, how much money were you promised by Daphne to go down and do this? $10,000. $10,000, okay. She told you that you would get $10,000?

Yes. Bobby says he first met Daphne when he was dating her friend in 2011. At the time, he had been laid off work and was struggling to make ends meet. I was so desperate, so hungry, so didn't want to be on the street, didn't know what to do, didn't know how to do it. Bobby says, Daphne knew his financial desperation

would make him receptive to her plan. Bobby soon learned that Daphne was something akin to a spiritual loan shark. The people who owed her the most were Hong Li and Chow Tran, despite the fact that Daphne had never been able to remove the curse on their business. Business didn't really pick up, and they never really got out of the hole that they were in as far as the business was concerned. Instead of changing course, Chow just continued to pour their money into Daphne. She started running these guys on credit,

and it ballooned up to somewhere between $250,000 and $280,000. Bobby says that when Daphne called in the bill, Chow and Hong couldn't pay, and that Daphne wasn't the type to forgive a debt. She was wanting to recoup the money that she felt like she was owed. She learned that Chow and his wife were actually the beneficiaries of two very substantial life insurance policies.

Daphne pounced on the idea, and they could collect on both insurance policies. From Bobby's perspective, Daphne was the mastermind behind this whole entire deal. She dictated everything that was supposed to go down. When Daphne gave you a key to that apartment, you drove to Arlington. Was Daphne under the impression that you were going to kill the couple? She was. But when Bobby tells investigators

how Daphne got the key, he makes a startling accusation. Chow Tran? Yeah. She told you that's what she got the key for? From you. Detectives are completely blindsided by the allegations of betrayal. I developed a relationship with Chow and his family. We'd go see them periodically through the course of this investigation.

And then all of a sudden, Bobby himself is saying that Chow was involved in this. Before following up on Bobby's accusations against Chow, investigators focus on the woman who allegedly ordered the murders, Daphne Wright. On August 31, 2016, detectives arrive at her Houston home. She was married and she had three daughters. She appeared to be the driving force in the family. She's loud, she's direct, she runs that house.

Everything centers around her. Her husband, Howard, was pretty much subservient to her. We tried to talk to her about Chow. She confirms that she knows Chow. He's a client of hers. She knew about the death of the loved ones, the in-laws. She said that he told her about it. I asked her about the amount that Chow had to pay her. She would not go into detail. I asked Daphne, what happens if someone doesn't pay you? And then she looked at me and she says,

oh, they will pay. She had no doubt that she would be paid. When detectives confront Daphne with Bobby's story, she admits to knowing Bobby but refuses to go into detail. She was still very short with us and very cold. She wasn't going to help. She wasn't going to help us at all. Willie knew who Daphne was. Bobby, you know, ID'd her.

Everything pointed to her. Yes, she was definitely involved, and she needed to be in jail. After Daphne declines to share the extent of her business dealings with Chow, detectives are forced to obtain an arrest warrant and return to Daphne's home. We go to the Houston area, and we make that arrest.

But we also do a search warrant on her home as well. Inside, police find a ledger which details Daphne's fees for providing her spiritual services, including removing and applying curses. There were ledgers that purported to show that she was charging people $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 for services rendered. That means my eyeballs popped out of my head.

With Daphne under arrest, detectives first attempt to find out if her husband Howard knows anything about the crime. Her husband was very cooperative. He maintained that he didn't know any of this was happening, didn't know why we were there, maintained his wife's innocence. Do you have any idea of anything that I'm talking about right now in reference to this old situation? Absolutely not. This is your first time hearing any of this information at all? The very first time.

Detectives move on to Daphne, hoping the gravity of her arrest will encourage her to confess. But Daphne continues to hold her ground. If I have to make any statements or anything, I like to have my daughter present before I do anything. OK. Coming up, Chow reveals how much control Daphne had over their family. He tried to say was that Daphne was controlling his mind,

that Daphne had control over his mind and his body, and she was making him do things. But can he be trusted? He claimed that his mother-in-law wanted to be killed. It was completely ludicrous. To fully explain our case against Daphne, you have to sometimes make a deal with the devil. to make a deal with the devil. MUSIC

In 2015, Detective Sapina Chow Tran's financial records. They discover that since the deaths of his in-laws, Long Nguyen and Hong Lee, he had been busy, but not with the family business. We found the new home was purchased. We also know that the business folded. They didn't open the business again. I want to interview him now, but he refuses to talk to me.

Although authorities believe Chow is involved in the murder plot, Daphne Wright seems to be the puppet master. Prosecutors are willing to offer Chow a deal in order to secure their case against the others. With his lawyer present, Chow explains that when the family's sewing business started to struggle, he and his mother-in-law, Hong Lee, reached out to Daphne. According to Chow, they were terrified of being in debt

to someone they believed had spiritual powers. If they believe in her ability to remove a curse, they know that she can also put a curse on them as well. She made it very clear, you know, if someone didn't pay, what would happen? And she basically said, I'm getting my money one way or another. Chow claims that to save her family from an even more

terrible curse at Daphne's hands, Hong was prepared to offer herself as the ultimate sacrifice. Chow said she had actually suggested that she sacrifice herself, that they let her die so that they could collect the insurance policy and pay Daphne. Daphne thought it was a great idea. In they could collect the insurance policy and pay Daphne. Daphne thought it was a great idea.

In fact, one life insurance policy wasn't enough for Daphne. She wanted both of them dead so that they could collect on both insurance policies and cover their full debt. Investigators believe that after Chow and his wife received the insurance money, he paid Daphne in cash. But they have serious doubts about Chow's claim that this was Hong's idea.

He claimed his mother-in-law wanted to be killed. It was completely ludicrous. Still, prosecutors believe they need Chow to put Daphne, the woman who hired and paid the hitmen, behind bars. And they make him an offer he can't refuse. After all is said and done, Chow is offered immunity in exchange for his testimony against Bobby, Willie, and Daphne. We knew we would need Chow in order to strengthen our case against Daphne. We knew we would need Chow in order to strengthen

our case against Daphne. So I mean, you have to sometimes make a deal with the devil. On August 26, 2019, Daphne's trial begins. And Chow's testimony is undeniably impactful. Chow portrayed Daphne as a greedy woman who would do anything to get her money, even if it meant killing two elderly, sweet people. Daphne's defense attacks Chow's credibility and the claim that the family was indebted

to a mystical mafiosa. What Chow testified to was they owed Daphne Wright a lot of money, and that Daphne was basically blackmailing them. What he tried to say was that Daphne was controlling his mind, that Daphne had control over his mind and his body, and she was making him do things. You run up a $280,000 bill, and there's not a single documentation of it anywhere. I continue to provide me with an email, how you owe money?

Zero, nothing. I believe Chow Tran wanted the $850,000. The $850,000 went in his pocket nowhere else. Chow also testifies he left the key to the apartment under a mat and told Daphne, who in turn told Bobby Guillory. The defense said even though Chow received immunity, he was complicit in this scheme. In September 2019, the jury returns to announce Daphne's fate. Unfortunately, the jury made a call that I simply disagree with.

She was convicted of capital murder. She received the ultimate punishment, which is life in prison without parole. My intention was to try Chow Tran. And as it stands right now, Chow is not charged. And unless Daphne sits in jail long enough or Bobby sits in jail long enough to bring us some independent evidence, he's not going to get charged. It will never sit well for me that, you know, Chow Tran is not in prison. I do believe that, you know, what goes around comes around. What's done in the dark will come to light.

And I thoroughly believe that. And they'll have to answer for what they did, all of them. Willie Guillory pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and is currently serving a 20-year sentence. He will be eligible for parole in 2025 at the age of 29. On September 13, 2018, Bobby Guillory was convicted of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Well, Daphne Wright is serving a life sentence at the Christina Melton Crane Unit in Gatesville, Texas.

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