WA WA - Nguyet Thu Phung, 19, Lynnwood, 9 May 1991

[sasha17]

Nguyet was last seen leaving her parents' apartment heading for school and work that day.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

She is mentioned in this news article as possibly the victim of a serial murderer: Business | Police Say Serial Murderer At Work In 3 Counties | Seattle Times Newspaper

 

[Murkywaters]

Added to The Charley Project

Nguyet Thu Phung – The Charley Project

• Missing Since 05/09/1991
• Missing From Lynnwood, Washington
• Classification Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Asian
• Date of Birth 09/18/1971 (49)
• Age 19 years old
• Height and Weight 5'2, 115 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Asian female. Black hair, brown eyes. Phung has a mole on her upper lip, and her ears are pierced. She may use her first, middle and last names in various different orders.

Details of Disappearance
Phung was last seen leaving her parents' Lynnwood, Washington apartment on May 9, 1991. She planned to go to school and work that day. She has never been heard from again. Investigators believe she may have been the victim of a serial killer. Few details are available in her case.

 

[Murkywaters]

Police Say Serial Murderer At Work In 3 Counties | The Seattle Times

"I view the 12 missing women the same as the eight missing Green River victims," he said.

No one is saying any of the murders since 1985 are the work of the Green River serial killer, but whoever is doing the killing shares some habits with the notorious murderer: he abducts mostly prostitutes, kills them, and leaves their bodies in rural areas.

The 12 missing women are: Virginia Rambus, 19; Diane Robbins, 13; Patricia Barczak, 19; Doris Mulhern, 21; Darci Warde, 16; Erin MacGregor, 18; Jami Sherer, 26; Deborah Wims, 31; Linda Moore, 29; Heather Kinchen, 14; Nguyet Thu Phung, 19; and Cora McGuirk, 22.

Rambus, Robbins, MacGregor, Sherer and Phung had no known connection to prostitution, said Tom Jensen, the King County detective who does much of the day-to-day tracking of the women.

 

[Dallmannshelly]

She had no connection to prostitution.

 

[Murkywaters]

She had no connection to prostitution.

Welcome to Websleuths Dallmannshelly!

Thanks for clearing that up, did you happen to know Nguyet?

 

[Dallmannshelly]

I’m friends with her younger sister. Back in 2014 I sought to have her eliminated as a match to “Helen Doe” who was discovered in a truck fire 5 days after the disappearance of Nguyet.(5/9/91 and 5/14/91) Since then I have been following Helens cases hoping to find her true identity. I’ve ask for more details from Nguyet’s her sister so it can be added to the file.

 

[buyerninety]

PM sent to Dallmannshelly re MUPU

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

THU "WIKI" PHUNG was a 19 year old cutie with her entire life ahead of her until 9 May 1991.

Wiki lived at home with her parents, who brought her and her other 5 siblings from Saigon, Vietnam to escape the historical Communist takeover; and she was thriving: a loving family, a high school diploma, good friends. Wiki was a Seattle college student with a clerical job at Seattle's downtown Federal Building. She disappeared without a trace while going to and from school, work and home. Due to the timing of her disappearance she was hurriedly grouped into a pool of the many unfortunate missing women who were considered to be victims of the Green River Killer (now known as Gary Ridgeway), or a copycat killer. She neither matched the Ridgeway's victim pool, their circumstances or his well-defined hunting grounds.

Wiki was a devoted, good sister, excited future auntie and daughter. Her family was shattered with no answers: WIKI HAS NOT BEEN FOUND. Police effort, for various reasons, was scant and brief. Her father died with a broken heart and had said he would rather have lived a hard life under Communism than have brought his family to the USA and lose his dear daughter.

Looking through 5 different newspaper sources and a fair amount of time with online searches, there have been a total of FIVE articles that mentioned her--her case is filed as a cold case. If you have any information, however small, or any ideas: please reach out. Her family is counting on us. This is an entirely renewed family and friends effort so ENTHUSIASM is much appreciated.

Contacts: this thread
or
Lynwood, WA Police: 1-206-775-4545
Case #: (OCA) L91-04425

"Wiki" is listed as Nguyet Thu Phung on the NamUS missing persons index.

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

UPDATE/EDIT: LYNNWOOD, SNOHOMISH COUNTY, WA

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

She had no connection to prostitution.

Exactly!

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

Police Say Serial Murderer At Work In 3 Counties | The Seattle Times

"I view the 12 missing women the same as the eight missing Green River victims," he said.

No one is saying any of the murders since 1985 are the work of the Green River serial killer, but whoever is doing the killing shares some habits with the notorious murderer: he abducts mostly prostitutes, kills them, and leaves their bodies in rural areas.

The 12 missing women are: Virginia Rambus, 19; Diane Robbins, 13; Patricia Barczak, 19; Doris Mulhern, 21; Darci Warde, 16; Erin MacGregor, 18; Jami Sherer, 26; Deborah Wims, 31; Linda Moore, 29; Heather Kinchen, 14; Nguyet Thu Phung, 19; and Cora McGuirk, 22.

Rambus, Robbins, MacGregor, Sherer and Phung had no known connection to prostitution, said Tom Jensen, the King County detective who does much of the day-to-day tracking of the women.

Yep... there were so many misconceptions about who the Green River/Riverman worked, who he was, and where he was working. Everybody thought he was a mastermind..and he was just "lucky" with a terribly low I.Q. He only went after the lowest hanging fruit. Wiki was nowhere in that situation. All she did was go from home to work to school and back.

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

Nguyet was last seen leaving her parents' apartment heading for school and work that day.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

She is mentioned in this news article as possibly the victim of a serial murderer: Business | Police Say Serial Murderer At Work In 3 Counties | Seattle Times Newspaper

Using GenealogyBank, Newspapers.com, Ancestry, and Newsbank, I'm only able to get "text" articles only. Does anybody have a membership to Seattle Times and able to access archives? I found 4 in Seattle Times but photos and captions mean everything. One was a tiny text statement in Seattle Post Intelligencer (shamefully small). The Olympian is in the middle of archiving/digitalizing all of their content at this time, though I have a membership (of course). News Tribune out of Tacoma had SO FEW articles I was sickened. The family has said that the Seattle Times was more compassionate/helpful than the police. If anybody has access to library microfiche or archives material, please let me know?

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

Does anybody here have access to any local Vietnamese community literature out of Lynnwood and the Seattle area during about 1991-1993?

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

Nguyet was last seen leaving her parents' apartment heading for school and work that day.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

She is mentioned in this news article as possibly the victim of a serial murderer: Business | Police Say Serial Murderer At Work In 3 Counties | Seattle Times Newspaper

Yes! That's there

Added to The Charley Project

Nguyet Thu Phung – The Charley Project

• Missing Since 05/09/1991
• Missing From Lynnwood, Washington
• Classification Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Asian
• Date of Birth 09/18/1971 (49)
• Age 19 years old
• Height and Weight 5'2, 115 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Asian female. Black hair, brown eyes. Phung has a mole on her upper lip, and her ears are pierced. She may use her first, middle and last names in various different orders.

Details of Disappearance
Phung was last seen leaving her parents' Lynnwood, Washington apartment on May 9, 1991. She planned to go to school and work that day. She has never been heard from again. Investigators believe she may have been the victim of a serial killer. Few details are available in her case.

She was on the Charley Project -- looking her up was somewhat difficult in databases due to rearrangement of names and often using her nickname instead of her first name (Nguyet) or the name she used for everything all of the time (Thu). Neither NamUS and Charley Project mention that she was probably wear the gold band she has in one of her pictures.

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

Added to The Charley Project

Nguyet Thu Phung – The Charley Project

• Missing Since 05/09/1991
• Missing From Lynnwood, Washington
• Classification Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Asian
• Date of Birth 09/18/1971 (49)
• Age 19 years old
• Height and Weight 5'2, 115 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Asian female. Black hair, brown eyes. Phung has a mole on her upper lip, and her ears are pierced. She may use her first, middle and last names in various different orders.

Details of Disappearance
Phung was last seen leaving her parents' Lynnwood, Washington apartment on May 9, 1991. She planned to go to school and work that day. She has never been heard from again. Investigators believe she may have been the victim of a serial killer. Few details are available in her case.

More and more since then the serial killer theory has gone by the wayside for Wiki's case. When Ridgway was first sniffed out in 2001 it became more clear what his MO and preferred habit/hunting grounds were. I've wondered how many women were named in the previous article on the chain who ended up NOT being among Green River victims. Ridgway possibly admitted to most of his victims, but probably not all...but very unlikely Wiki was among them anyway.

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

Newsclipping photo - can't find source or date.

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

[
Apparently she disappeared during the daytime and used the bus for everything in downtown Seattle and to get home. During a weeknight, how late would the buses keep running. Also, she apparently stayed in very close contact and would have called home were she running late at any time. We're talking about fighting a stereotype on this ridiculous prostitute thing that Asian women seem to so easily be grouped into, to the point that somebody fixated on them goes into nail parlors and shoots a bunch of them (and that's a recent news item). We're talking about a girl who tended to the opposite stereotype of a good daughter who was about family and taking care of her family/parents. With that in mind: what else could have happened that day?

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

The Phung family came to the USA in abt 1975 with $100 in their pockets. Their 6 children were all hardworking and felt a great tie to each other and taking care of their parents and each other; school was extremely important. Wiki's attitude was not recently off, she didn't have unexpected funds or fancier things. As far as the many photos go: I can't vouch for it but in the late 80's/early 90's girls did senior portrait packages with a pro, or a much more affordable photo shoot at the mall with various outfits in tow. It was almost expected.

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

I’m friends with her younger sister. Back in 2014 I sought to have her eliminated as a match to “Helen Doe” who was discovered in a truck fire 5 days after the disappearance of Nguyet.(5/9/91 and 5/14/91) Since then I have been following Helens cases hoping to find her true identity. I’ve ask for more details from Nguyet’s her sister so it can be added to the file.

Was there any harvestable DNA material? Was it submitted?

 

[Lens For Lindsey]

I’m friends with her younger sister. Back in 2014 I sought to have her eliminated as a match to “Helen Doe” who was discovered in a truck fire 5 days after the disappearance of Nguyet.(5/9/91 and 5/14/91) Since then I have been following Helens cases hoping to find her true identity. I’ve ask for more details from Nguyet’s her sister so it can be added to the file.

Do you have any news or other materials/links to this "Helen Doe" information? Have not heard of it yet. Thanks!