Diary may play role in jury’s decision

Molly Ball

Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 | 8:49 a.m.

Three hours after he fatally shot his ex-girlfriend, Vannasone Ouanbengboune wrote in his journal in red felt-tipped pen, "The only forgive that I have for you is one bullet in the head."

Like many of his diary entries, this one was addressed "To whom it may concern." At the top of the page he had written: "Raynna Bunyou Die 3:42 a.m." -- the time to the minute when the 38-year-old Bunyou was shot in the head in the parking lot of the Bangkok Boom karaoke club on Aug. 7, 2003.

Ouanbengboune, 34, and known as "Sonny," does not deny that he shot Bunyou or that he wrote those things. But his lawyers say he committed second-degree murder -- killing in the heat of passion -- rather than first-degree murder, which is premeditated.

"There's a big difference between instantly reacting to the emotions in your heart and contemplating the consequences of your actions," Deputy Public Defender Charles Cano said. "And that is the difference between first-degree murder and second-degree murder."

The difference between the two charges is 10 years: the minimum prison sentences for first-degree and second-degree murder are 20 years and 10 years, respectively.

Jurors heard the two sides' closing arguments on Friday in the murder trial before District Judge Jackie Glass. Ouanbengboune also faces a robbery charge for leaving the club in Bunyou's car after the shooting. The jury was to begin deliberating this morning.

Earlier in the week Ouanbengboune testified in his own defense, saying he went to the club intending to kill himself, not Bunyou, but became enraged when she insulted him.

Speaking Laotian -- the language of the Southeast Asian country of Laos -- through an interpreter, Ouanbengboune said he spent the day leading up to the shooting snorting large amounts of powdered methamphetamine and thinking suicidal thoughts.

He was sad and angry, believing that Bunyou looked down on him like a dog. He decided to kill himself in front of her to show him how deeply he loved her, he said. But he needed to talk to her first.

That night, he took a bus to the Bangkok Boom, a nightspot near Valley View Boulevard and Desert Inn Road that they both frequented regularly, and waited for her outside. When she came out, he asked her why she had lied to him, but she yelled at him and insulted him, Ouanbengboune testified.

He was especially hurt when Bunyou maligned his mother, who had nothing to do with the argument, he said, weeping as he recalled it.

Ouanbengboune then pulled his gun, an old-fashioned .357 revolver, out of his pocket and shot her in the leg, he said. She slumped to the ground. He said he didn't remember firing the second shot, but he knew it hit her in the back of the head.

Witnesses to the shooting said he looked down at Bunyou, aiming the gun carefully, as he fired into her head at close range.

Ouanbengboune then fled to Oklahoma, where he stayed with friends and was arrested a week later after a five-hour standoff with the FBI.

Prosecutors said Ouanbengboune had been plotting to kill Bunyou since Feb. 21, 2003, when he was arrested for domestic violence after an incident at the home the two shared.

Police responding to Bunyou's call found him sitting on the couch with the lights off, a gun stashed beneath a couch cushion. Bunyou reportedly had a swollen eye and bruises on her knee and armpit.

But at Ouanbengboune's court hearing, Bunyou took back most of her original statements, saying he had only slapped her and she overreacted. He was convicted of misdemeanor domestic battery and served more than a month in jail.

In the two spiral notebooks in which he recorded his feelings, Ouanbengboune refers repeatedly to "2-21-03." To him, it symbolized an unforgivable betrayal, prosecutors said.

In a July 2003 entry, he wrote, "Try to ask why it end up like this. This date will give you a hint 2-21-03. I will never forget and you asked for it."

In another entry, he wrote, "I'm waiting for the right time," and "You can run but you can't hide."

A friend of Ouanbengboune, Vongpradith "Joe" Chanthoravout, testified that the killing almost took place a month earlier.

Sometime in July, Chanthoravout said, the two were at the Bangkok Boom when Ouanbengboune warned him to leave before 3 a.m. because that was when he had arranged for a friend to kill "his girl."

Chanthoravout said he spent half an hour locked in the bathroom with Ouanbengboune, trying to talk him out of it, and eventually succeeded.