KTLA News
6:49 AM PST, February 12, 2010
SANTA ANA -- A fortune-teller and her daughter were brutally murdered by a client because a love spell didn't work, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.
Tanya Nelson, is accused of stabbing Ha "Jade" Smith and her 23-year-old daughter, Anita Vo.
The bodies of the mother and daughter were found repeatedly stabbed in the face inside their home on April 21, 2005.
The victims' hands were covered in white paint, which may have been an attempt to cover up evidence, authorities said.
Nelson, 45, of North Carolina was angered that the fortune-teller wasn't able to change reality, and decided to travel to Orange County to kill her, Senior Deputy District Attorney Sonia Balleste told jurors during closing arguments.
The fortune-teller wrote a letter to Nelson and apologized for not being able to change anything, Balleste said.
That letter was found in Nelson's home.
Nelson, who also uses the name Phuong Thao Nguyen and used to live in Orange County, is accused of assuming the identities of the victims after the killings, spending more than $3,000 on clothing and buying plane tickets for a family vacation in Southern California.
Smith, known as Miss Ha in the local Vietnamese community, did card and palm readings from an office at a strip mall in Midway City.
She was known nationally among Vietnamese-Americans as a skilled fortune-teller and had clients from as far away as New York.
Nelson is charged with two counts of murder plus the special circumstances of committing multiple murders, murders for financial gain, and murders during the commission of robbery, burglary and by lying in wait.
From: http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-fortune-teller-murder,0,2124028.story
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