Pipo Nguyen-Duy was a familiar name in the art world and in classrooms at Oberlin College, where he taught studio art for years and showed his photographs internationally. This week, the sixty-four-year-old and his wife, Thi Tran Phong, fifty-six, were found shot to death inside their Oberlin, Ohio home. Charged in their deaths is Asia Nguyen-Duy, thirty-one, who faces six counts of murder.
What makes this case unusual is the sequence prosecutors laid out in court. Investigators say a smoldering, modified vehicle registered to the suspect was found in an Oberlin College parking lot Wednesday, with loose ammunition and magazine packaging inside. Authorities then went to the victims’ home for a welfare check. Prosecutors also say the suspect approached a nearby resident and asked to be recorded, offering a confession that claimed they were escaping a cult and accepting full responsibility.
The suspect appeared in court Thursday, carried in by officers, and remains held on a three million dollar bond. As details continue to come out, the story has unsettled the college community and the broader arts scene that knew the professor’s work.
What would you do if a stranger handed you a recorded confession and asked you to hold onto it?
