| Husband Kills Originator, Self
Uyen Tran found dead at home December 27, 2004 By PATRICK CROWLEY |
| A southern California mortgage loan originator was shot and killed by her new husband — who then turned the gun on himself. The shooting continues a macabre series of violent yet unrelated deaths gripping the nation’s mortgage industry.Uyen Boa Tran, 35, who worked in the Newport Beach, Calif., office of Millennium Mortgage, is the fourth person in the mortgage industry to recently die a violent death.
The other killings were the stabbing of a mortgage broker in Florida and the shootings of people tied to the mortgage industry in Chicago and New York. What’s tragic about Tran’s death is she apparently died at the hands of her husband in what Newport Beach police have described as a murder-suicide. What’s worse is that Tran knew she might be the victim of violence. On Dec. 9 police responded to the apartment Tran shared with her husband, Aaron Jon Miles, 37. The couple had been married only two months and were planning a more elaborate wedding ceremony, friends told The Los Angeles Times. But police went to the couple’s apartment after receiving a call from a female family member, according to the statement issued by Newport Beach police. That family member told police she received a cell phone “text message” from Tran that indicated she was concerned about her welfare “and that if anything happened to her, her husband was responsible.” When police arrived at the couple’s apartment, they entered through an unlocked sliding glass door and found Tran and her husband. “Both victims had been shot one time and a handgun was found inside the residence,” police said. Newport Police detectives said in the statement they believe Miles shot Tran and then turned the gun on himself. “The motive for the shooting is still under investigation,” police said. Tran has a 10-year-old son from another marriage. He was not at home at the time of shooting. Luis Chevere, branch manager for the Millennium Mortgage, would not grant MortgageDaily.com an interview. “The family doesn’t want anyone talking to the media out of respect for her,” Chevere did say. Chevere confirmed that Tran had been a mortgage originator for about 10 years. He told the Los Angeles Times that she was well-known in the community and energetic about her job. “She was a very pumped-up person,” he reportedly told the paper. “She was ready to do her job day in and day out.” In the other killings Chicago mortgage broker Keith Johnson was stabbed in southern Florida on Nov. 30; Robert Calabrese, a mortgage broker on Long Island, N.Y., was shot near his car last week; and Thomas Fazy, who had done time for mortgage fraud two years ago, was gunned down in a suburban Chicago mortgage office. |
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Patrick Crowley is a political reporter and columnist and former business writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Email Patrick at: pcrowley@enquirer.com |
