Guilty plea entered in murder of UNLV student

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Dec. 31, 1997 | 11:15 a.m.

When a former perpetually tardy kitchen worker at an MGM Grand hotel-casino restaurant pleaded guilty without a plea bargain to all charges in the bloody slaying of a UNLV coed, it appeared to be a calculated gamble.

And gambling is something that was an entrenched part of Vinh Sinh Truong's life.

In court Tuesday, he explained to District Judge Jeff Sobel that he stole $25,000 from his ex-employer in October 1996 to repay loan sharks that were circling.

When Truong was arrested a short time after the incident as he was leaving Palace Station hotel-casino, $2,000 of the stolen funds already were gone.

The stabbing death of 20-year-old Lisa Sadie had resulted when a blow to her head with a ketchup bottle failed to render her unconscious and she began screaming, Truong admitted.

Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz is seeking the death penalty for Truong and the guilty plea means that decision will be made by a three-judge panel rather than a jury.

Such panels almost always hand down death sentences, but Sobel should be on this panel and he has long voiced his personal opposition to the death penalty.

The gamble for Truong is that Sobel, and two judges yet to be named, will overlook the brutal nature of the slaying and the defendant's history of crime to give him a life prison term with or without the possibility of parole.

A date for the penalty hearing cannot be set until two other judges, who must be from other parts of Nevada, are named to sit on the panel.

Schwartz said there was little doubt about Truong's guilt.

He was videotaped by surveillance cameras leaving the resort's Studio Cafe and was recognized by hotel employees who had worked with him on the graveyard shift before his termination for tardiness.

When Truong was arrested, he was still wearing clothes stained with Sadie's blood.

Sadie worked as the restaurant's head cashier to put herself through film studies classes at UNLV.

Schwartz said Truong was familiar with the location of the money and knew when the safe would be full.

Along with pleading guilty to first-degree murder, Truong also pleaded guilty to burglary and robbery.

He already was on parole for counterfeiting and had a past felony conviction for embezzlement, Schwartz said.