(BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala.) March 19 - Friday, a jury will recommend death or life in prison for Lam Luong, the father accused of throwing his children off the Dauphin Island bridge. Some locals say, no matter what the jury decides, there will never be closure.
For the last year, every day Glenda Hilliard spends fishing in Bayou La Batre, she thinks about those four children, especially little Lindsey, and the days she used to spend babysitting her. Thursday, Hilliard's mind was on the courtroom and the killer inside.
"I'd like to know if they are just going to lock him up in a private cell down there and get three meals a day on our tax money, or are they going to put him out with the rest of the guys," Hilliard said. "Maybe he'll get what he deserves."
It was a very emotional moment for Kieu Phan as she left the courtroom, just minutes earlier. Lam Luong was found guilty of murdering her four children.
"She's going through that emotional thing right now, because it's not just four but it's five persons in her life that are gone," said the slain children's uncle, Kam Phengsisomboun. "All we needed to hear was the guilty part, and she was happy with it. The tears are of happiness and sadness."
The next time Phan leaves this courtroom, she'll know if her husband will live or die.
Phan's family did not want to comment on Friday's sentencing, but locals did.
"I would hang him by his feet off the Dauphin Island Bridge, and I would dip him in the water and keep him there until he's almost out of breath, and I would pull him up again and I would let him suffer," one Bayou La Batre resident said.
"There will never be no closure," Hilliard said. "No, never, never. I just hope he gets what he deserves."
