Woman Loses $75k Gambling Then Torches Husband To Death

A Vietnamese woman is now facing up to the prospect of life behind bars, after admitting to burning her husband to death over her gambling related debts.
On January 29th, Le Hoang Hung, 50, died after spending ten days in hospital with third-degree burns to over half of his body. On the night of the horrific incident, his wife Tran Thuy Lieu, 40, claimed she was sleeping in a room with their two daughters when her reporter husband had burst into the room covered in flames.
At the time, it was feared that her husband might have come under attack from underworld elements seeking revenge for his bold reporting on crime and corruption.
Despite the plausibility of the good man with many enemies’ story, suspicion still never travelled too far away from his wife. Police were able to discover that Tran Thi Thuy Lieu had a gambling problem and had frequently argued with her husband over financial matters.
Nevertheless, Lieu admitted no involvement in the murder and instead simply explained:
“After building our house, we had to pay off our debts. I thought it would be easy to make that money, gambling, if we did our research. But I lost more than I won. I only traveled to casinos in the day when he was not at home. Now that he’s dead I feel guilty and ashamed [that I tried to hide it from him].”
However, the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper on February 5th published a story claiming Lieu had pleaded with her husband to sell their house in order to repay her V$1.5 billion ($75,000) gambling debts accrued over 22 trips to neighbouring Cambodia.
Her husband refused and it would now appear Lieu then determined to scare her husband, along with another suspected accomplice, although she claims she never meant to kill him.
Before the revelation of his wife’s involvement in the appalling crime, Truong Van Tem, 49, payed tribute to his murdered friend by saying:
“Hung has always been a good journalist. He has worked to protect the rights of residents who had suffered from wrongs at the hands of government officials…His career has hurt many. It’s no surprise that someone would want to take a revenge on him.”
 
In a tragic twist of irony, it now seems it was his wife who eventually succeeded in bringing down her intrepid husband where other disgruntled criminals in the past had failed.