Man convicted of voluntary manslaughter in Gwinnett slaying
A Gwinnett County man was convicted of voluntary manslaughter Tuesday for stabbing to death a man who had secretly begun dating his fiance.
Lawyers for Son Hoang never disputed that he stabbed 24-year-old Vu Quang Lu on Dec. 1, 2009. There were 10 witnesses who saw what happened.
However, defense attorney Seth Kirschenbaum successfully argued to the jury that his client committed a crime of passion not rising to the level of murder, which was the charge prosecutors leveled against Hoang. Hoang was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole in about 13 years, Kirschenbaum said.
Police said Hoang, 28, of Norcross, was in a jealous rage when he attacked Lu with a pocket knife at the Mozart Bakery on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth. Lu started having an affair with Hoang's fiance about a month prior, Kirschenbaum said.
Hoang and the woman had been living together at his mother's house for eight years and they had two young children. On the day of the slaying, Hoang tracked his fiance to the cafe after he went searching for her car. He found her sitting beside Lu in a booth.
"He didn't just see two people sitting next to each other having a cup of coffee," Kirschenbaum said. "He saw everything he dreamed of, everything he cared about in the world gone in that moment, and he snapped."
