Village ties are exhausted.

(Baonghean) -From a place where neighbors help each other in times of need, but because of small conflicts and lack of restraint, people have died and others have gone to jail. What is more painful is that the neighborly love that has been built up for many years is now filled with hatred and resentment...

Through two trials at the first instance and the Supreme Court of Appeal, the defendant Chu Thien Hue (born in 1989, residing in Hamlet 3, Dien Truong Commune, Dien Chau District) was sentenced to 7 years in prison for murder. Among the people attending the trial, I met Ms. Nguyen Thi Khuyen, the mother of the defendant Hue. She came to the trial with a plastic bag containing all kinds of documents proving Hue's illness, hoping that it could help her son reduce his crime. Above, Hue sat absent-mindedly, his eyes staring blankly ahead.

Mother and son were close together but could not talk much. Her questions seemed to fall into a void before her eyes. She said that every time she visited her son in the detention camp, Hue was also taciturn like that. When her mother asked, he only answered briefly. Opening the plastic bag, she laid out some papers on the table and said as if to explain: “Here are Hue’s hospital papers. He suffered from depression and has not been cured after a long treatment. Out of money, I brought him home hoping that with his mother by his side and close to the neighbors, his condition would improve. Who would have thought that he would cause such a terrible incident. It is not that the two families had any grudges or conflicts. It is just that he could not control himself and that is why he ended up like this.”

The investigation results of the authorities showed that on September 20, 2012, Chu Thien Hue was at home while his mother went to work in the fields. Because she suspected that Hue had broken the roof tiles of her house, Mrs. Pham Thi Huong (born in 1963, Hue's next-door neighbor) stood next door and cursed loudly. Hue thought it had nothing to do with her, so she didn't care. Ms. Khuyen, who was working in the fields nearby, heard the neighbor's curse and thought it was referring to her son, but tried to hold back.

At dusk, after coming home from work, two neighbors argued. Hue was lying in the house, heard the cursing and ran out shouting: "Shut up, or I will come and kill you". The neighbor was not to be outdone, after digging up the pain of Hue's family, she also threw out more challenging words before going into the house. While lying in the house, hearing the challenge of the neighbor, Hue jumped up, ran to the well, grabbed a knife and went to the neighbor's house to slash the neck, arms and legs of the homeowner. As a result, Mrs. Huong died on the spot. After committing the crime, Chu Thien Hue fled, but with encouragement from the family, only an hour later, Hue went to the authorities to surrender.

Subject Chu Thien Hue.

“He suffered for his crime. But the fault would not have been entirely Hue’s if she had not cursed him as the son of a man who died in the river or in the market,” Ms. Khuyen explained. Then, as if needing someone to share her pain, she told me the story of her sad life. Married, with 3 children, both boys and girls. The 5 people lived off a few acres of rice, not very well off but enough to get by. 10 years ago, after a minor illness, for unknown reasons, her husband suddenly thought of something stupid, drowned himself in the river, and his body was found 3 days later. Her husband died, leaving her with 3 school-age children, and she struggled to stand up and be the breadwinner of the family.

When her eldest daughter entered her final year of university, Chu Thien Hue passed the entrance exam to the vocational college of Vinh University of Technical Education. The family only relied on more than 5 sao of rice fields, and had no extra work. Raising one child to study was already difficult, now raising two children, she often felt exhausted and could not overcome it. However, this miserable mother encouraged herself and her children to try together. Appreciating the hard-working and resilient nature of the neighborhood children, Mrs. Huong's family also occasionally helped her with the heavy work during the harvest season. Neighbors appreciate each other for their friendship and loyalty. The two families often visited each other, and the neighborhood relationship became even closer.

In the middle of her first year, Hue often had headaches and chest pains and insisted on taking a leave of absence from school. She discussed with her son to apply for a leave of absence to seek medical treatment and the school agreed. “Since she left school, she has become quiet and irritable. I took her to the doctor, they said she was depressed, treated her for a while, and felt at ease so I felt reassured. Who would have thought she would commit such a terrible crime?” she sobbed again. After Hue was arrested, she decided to sell all her assets, including the cow, and borrow 40 million VND from relatives, to compensate the neighboring family. Indeed, Mrs. Huong’s family was in a similar situation to hers. Her husband was not as agile as others, and her daughter was mentally handicapped, so she had to take care of all the big and small chores in the house. Mrs. Huong's eldest daughter worked as a hired worker, but only made enough to support herself. Therefore, when Mrs. Huong passed away, the small family fell into tragedy.

Believing that the defendant's actions were hooliganism and savagery stemming from his evil nature and not because Hue showed signs of mental illness, the victim's representative strongly requested the panel of judges to impose an appropriate punishment on Chu Thien Hue. However, both levels of the trial determined that the defendant had lost some of his capacity to act, and committed the crime under psychological agitation, so they sentenced Chu Thien Hue to 7 years in prison. The verdict also put an end to the friendly neighborly relationship between Ms. Khuyen and the victim's family. At the end of the trial, Ms. Khuyen quietly took the decision agreeing to reserve her child's academic results and left. She understood that with that sentence, this piece of paper no longer had any meaning...

Khang Hoa (CTV)