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| Melina Harm |
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| Jennifer Harm |
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| Choeun Harm |
Saturday, September 25, 2010
By Lynn Thompson
Seattle Times staff reporter
How to donate to the family
Phan/Harm Memorial Fund
BECU Account #3586082948
P.O. Box 34044
Seattle, WA 98124-1044
BECU members can call 800-233-2328.
Family was everything to Choeun Harm.
He had escaped the Khmer Rouge in his native Cambodia as a teenager, survived five years in a refugee camp on the border with Thailand, and then tried to re-establish his life in America, first in Pennsylvania, then in Stockton, Calif., before settling in Seattle in 1990.
He told his extended family that even if they had only a penny among them, if the family was together, it was OK.
That hope was shattered Thursday afternoon when Harm, 43, and two daughters, Jennifer, 17, and Melina, 14, were shot to death in their West Seattle home by Harm's mother-in-law, Saroeun Phan, 60, who then shot and killed herself.
Police and family members said Phan, also a Cambodian refugee, had a history of mental illness.
Saturday, surviving family members and friends remembered the three shooting victims as part of a lively, close-knit family who were more often together than apart.
"He was a good person"
Choeun Harm was an enthusiastic fisherman who often could be found under the West Seattle Bridge during salmon season. He also fished freshwater lakes.
"If you had been there and watched him, you would know how good he was," said Sarun Chhom, Harm's friend for 15 years. "He would catch two, three fish before anyone else caught one."
For weekend camping and fishing trips, the five kids would sit on top of each other in the family's Ford Explorer, crammed in with all their food and gear, said another longtime friend, Sean Phuong.
"The kids would all run around and have fun. He was a good person," Chhom said.
Harm ran a landscaping business with his father-in-law, Chhoey Sok, 62. Harm's only son, Kevin, 16, was frequently at his side, friends said. The business struggled because of the economic slowdown, and in recent months, they often worked only a few hours a day, Phuong said.
That's why they had come home around 1 p.m. Thursday and were getting ready to go fishing when Saroeun Phan came into the living room and began shooting. Harm was killed first.
His daughter, Jennifer Harm, was shot as she ran downstairs to comfort her father.
A friendly, helpful daughter
Saturday, friends remembered Jennifer as lively, funny and social. She would call friends just to chat when she was bored, said Lisa Sun, a cousin who lived with the family and survived the shooting.
Jennifer was also a homebody, helping her mother with cleaning, cooking and caring for her sisters.
Jennifer had attended Rainier Beach High School but dropped out.
She met her boyfriend, Allen Green, two and a half years ago. Jennifer's MySpace page features a photo of her in a silk Cambodian dress, swept up in Green's arms. He wrote about his love for her on the page, saying, "Don't underestimate her because she is littlest ... the end of the day she's always right there on my side ... I love you baby."
Quiet girl adored older sister
Jennifer's younger sister, Melina Harm, known to the family as Lina, adored her older sister and looked up to her, friends said. Lina was quiet. Jennifer was outgoing. Lina was more serious, whereas Jennifer liked to joke and tease.
Lina liked to dance and sing at family parties, her cousin Sun said, and she liked having the older girls paint her nails. She also liked to play basketball.
Another Harm daughter, Angel, 12, said her favorite memory of her sister Lina is of going to Dairy Queen for ice cream together when an older sister who lived in Missouri came to visit.
"She was quiet and nice. She always helped me with my homework," Angel said.
Lina always wanted to be with Jennifer. "Everywhere they go, they always go together," Sun said.
And so it was that when the young people in the home fled to a small basement room to escape from Grandma Phan on Thursday afternoon, Lina would not leave the wounded Jennifer.
Kevin broke a window and quickly scrambled out with Sun and Green. Kevin reached back for Lina and urged her to come.
Their grandmother came around the corner, shot at Kevin and missed. She shot Lina where she stood in the window.
"She wouldn't leave her older sister. Her older sister is her best friend," Kevin said.
14 comments:
Please help our compatriot victim family, I want to donation some money for those victim family too.
Tragic! just tragic....condolences for the family for they will have to live with "the what and how could have done to prevent this tragic event" for the rest of their lives. Very sad.
War effect. Many Cambodians come here untreated for their illness. Many don't really know what they are really experiencing. That's why the younger generations who are educated need to take extra care for their elders. It's always easy being stupid but harder to wiser and that's when you compromise and start between by one step at a time. My folks live in Olympia.
3:58pm, although reluctant with the stigma that majority of the former Cambodian refugees have this problem but I agree with you. This illness tend to manifest itself a bit later in life and after the subjects have settled in a more secured environment and are able to begin to reflect. There where the troubles begin; guilts, remorse, loneliness, sense of loss and abandonment, betrayal, injustice, unfairness, emptiness,..., etc.
Many Cambodian like these families were lost in the strange land. Came from very poor back ground to begin with didn't help either. It's so very sad to see this unfortunate thing happen.
That can happen to anyone when you sad and depress. Jobless and no income. That will do it sooner.
how she got a gun - she had a own gun ( she might former pol pot military.
That's what i'm wondering too. How did that old lady get a hold of a gun? And know how to use it? I bet she had it all planned out. This lady is a fucken PSYCHO. Evil is her innate behavior. So aint no medicine is going to cure EVIL.
Who brought this old lady to be a ferocity one? It was the civil war.Who was created it ? Sihanouk is the main person who,in 1970,brought Viet cong or Vietnamese soldiers to get power for him.The next one was Pol Pot,Khmer Rouge regime after Vietnamese soldiers in 1972.Pol Pot took over Cambodia in 1975-1979.These three and half made Khmer people so terrible.Maybe Saroeun Phan was...How did know to hold gun perfectly killing few people and herself?It was so sad!
According to the Seattle Times newspaper, she got mugged before. She then took a self-defense class in firearms safety. That is how she learn how to shoot.
I think she is a little crazy, but her subconscious mind still knows from right and wrong.
Her intentions were to kill everyone in the house. Remember, during the shooting, the gun got jammed and she was able to get another gun---reload with a fresh magazine and continue to shoot at the victim.
Still think she's coo-coo?
5:00 pm I totally agree. My father lives through his ordeal through sleep talk while sleeping. Younger generations think they got it hard while they have no idea what it is like for their parents. No Idea. Always remember no one can change who you really are.....KHMER!!!!!! Take pride
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12:18am, what about the rest of the Khmer people who went thru the same ordeal as her? They didn't go fucken blow up their family's brain. Don't defend this fucken psycho. Majority of the older generaton Khmer went thru the Khmer rouge regime. I went thru the Khmer rouge regime as well. It just made us stronger as a person, that's all. This lady knows exactly what she's doing. I guess she wants to carry on with the Khmer rouge's legacy.
(6:12)
It's bad enough that she murder her family, but you shouldn't go there.
War have different effect on different people. You can't generalize us as a whole. I, myself was also a Khmer Rouge survivor.
According to the news; she lost two of her family member to the Khmer Rouge. How do you know that she didn't witness their murder? Or may be she was exposed to the killing more then both of us.
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