Court To Parents: Hit 3-Years Old To Drive Demons

Assistant Harris County District Attorney Darin Darby told a court hearing that both parents beat the boy with bamboo sticks and poked his feet with chopsticks.

The new details of the alleged attack, based on a witiness statement from the boy’s six-year-old sister, were presented to Judge Debbie Mantooth Stricklin in the case against Phung Tran, 36.

She and her husband, Jacky Tran, 35, are charged with injury to a child with serious bodily injury, a first-degree felony. He was arrested at the couple’s Lone Dove Court home on Saturday, but his wife was charged yesterday.

Both face up to life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say the parents, devout Buddhists and vegetarians, believed demons entered the boy through meat he ate.

The boy is in hospital being treated for multiple skull fractures.

Both parents remain in Harris County jail on $100,000 bond each and are scheduled to appear in court again on May 14.

Phung Tran’s attorney, Charles Brown said he wanted a psychiatric evaluation done soon. At yesterday’s hearing, she shuffled through the courtroom with her eyes closed.

[Based on a report by the Houston Chronicle.]

By Calvin Palmer. Reprinted under Fair Use.