The Bình Tân Family Murders
Mai Xuân Chinh, Mai Thị Hồng and their three children were killed at their home and workshop shortly before Tết in 2018. Employee Nguyễn Hữu Tình admitted the killings and was sentenced to death at first instance in July 2018.
The family
Mai Xuân Chinh, 46, and his wife Mai Thị Hồng, 37, lived in Bình Tân District, Ho Chi Minh City, with their children Mai Xuân Triều, 13, Mai Huyền Diệu, 11, and Mai Huyền Diệp, 6. Chinh operated a metalworking business at the family home.
Nguyễn Hữu Tình, who was 18 at the time, worked for the family and stayed at the property. The killings occurred on February 12, 2018, during the period immediately before the Lunar New Year.
Discovery and arrest
The deaths were discovered on February 15 after concern arose at the house. Police quickly identified Tình as a suspect and arrested him the following day in neighboring Long An Province.
Early police reporting said property had been taken from the home. Prosecutors later charged Tình with murder and robbery.
Prosecution and admission
At the July 2018 trial before the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court, Tình admitted the conduct charged in the indictment. The prosecution attributed the killings to resentment arising from workplace conflict and to the theft of property.
This archive does not reproduce the graphic reconstruction of the crime that appeared in some contemporary reporting. The evidentiary point relevant here is that Tình admitted the killings in open court and the trial court entered convictions.
Sentence
On July 9, 2018, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced Nguyễn Hữu Tình to death for murder. He also received an eight-year sentence for robbery; the combined punishment was death. The court additionally ordered compensation to the victims' relatives.
Why this archive uses a partial classification
The first-instance conviction is well documented across Vietnamese state and major news sources. However, in the source set reviewed for this page, Crime by Region did not identify a sufficiently reliable later appellate or cassation decision establishing the final procedural disposition of the sentence.
For that reason, the page records the conviction exactly as documented but classifies the case as Partial / First-instance conviction rather than implying that every later avenue of review has been verified. This is a sourcing limitation, not a claim that the trial judgment was overturned.