NBC Bay Area has learned the man police arrested in connection with the five dead bodies discovered Friday in a home in San Francisco not only has a criminal record but was supposed to be deported six years ago.
Binh Thai Luc served eight years in San Quentin for assault with a firearm, attempted robbery and robbery in the second degree. Luc was convicted in 1998 of robbing a San Jose Chinese restaurant two years earlier.
While serving probation, Luc was taken into immigration and customs enforcement custody in August 2006. An immigration judge ordered him to be removed from the country on September 7, 2006, but that deportation never took place due to a lack of paperwork.
ICE says the Vietnamese authorities declined to provide the appropriate travel documents, so Luc ultimately had to be released. A Supreme Court precedent dictates that undocumented immigrants who are subject to a final order of removal can only be detained for 180 days.
Luc was released from ICE custody on Dec. 14, 2006. ICE says he continued to report to the immigration office in San Francisco, as required, after his release and he didn’t have any other incidents or arrests during that period. ICE has now lodged a immigration detainer on Luc following his arrest this weekend.
When San Francisco police arrested Luc, they also arrested his brother Brian Luc, who also has a criminal record. Brian Luc is on probation for DUI and discharging a firearm in a negative manner. Police say when they picked him up, he had narcotics and ammunition on him, a clear violation of his probation. Both brothers are in San Francisco county jail right now.
The District Attorney’s office it hasn’t received the official reports on the alleged quintuple murder yet, but police have until Tuesday to formally present the case against Binh Thai Luc to the D.A.
That is expected to happen tomorrow.
After that, the district attorney can decide exactly what the charges will be and then Binh Thai Luc is expected to be arraigned on Wednesday.
Also Monday, the medical examiner released the victims' names.
The women were identified as Wan Yi Wu, 62; Chia Huei Chu, 30; and Ying Xue Lei, 37, and the men were identified as Hua Shun Lei, 65, and Vincent Lei, 32.
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr initially said that some of the victims had been shot, but said at a news conference Sunday evening that further investigation revealed that was not the case.
Suhr said there was apparently an "edged" weapon involved, which he described as "a weapon capable of cutting you."
