A renowned photography professor at Oberlin College and his wife were found shot to death in their Ohio home, and the man's son has been charged with murder in the killings, police said.
Pipo Nguyen-duy, 64, and Trần Thị Nam Phong, 56, were discovered by law enforcement doing a welfare check at a home in Oberlin, Ohio, the morning of Oct. 28, the Oberlin Police Department said.
A suspect was identified as 31-year-old Daniel Jones, Nguyen-duy's son. Jones was charged with multiple counts of murder, felonious assault and evidence tampering, police said. An attorney for Jones didn't respond to a request for comment.
"I am simply overwhelmed with sadness, and I am deeply concerned about the impact of the devastating loss of Pipo to our community. Pipo was
beloved. During his years at Oberlin, he touched all of us through his passion for photography," Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar said in a statement.
Nguyen-duy, who served as chair for studio art at Oberlin, immigrated to the United States as a political refugee from Vietnam in 1975, his bio on the school's website said. His callings in life led him to be at various times a national table tennis athlete in Vietnam, a Buddhist monk in India and a bartender and nightclub manager in New York City. He taught at Oberlin since 1998.
He was a Guggenheim fellow in photography and was recognized with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council and Oberlin’s B. Wade and Jane B. White Fellowship in the Humanities.
His work "considered immigration and emigration, intimacy, abandonment and decay, cultural assimilation, and the cost of war," the Guggenheim Foundation said.
Police said they responded at about 9 a.m. to Oberlin's campus for a report of a vehicle possibly on fire, and found a Toyota hatchback "smoldering" with a boarded-up window and a wood stove-style heater inside with a makeshift chimney going through the roof. Jones was the registered owner, and his wallet, passport, keys and loose ammunition were found inside.
They found Jones about a mile away and took him into custody.
"Based on officer interaction with Jones, officers responded ... to perform a welfare check on his family," a police report obtained by USA TODAY said.
At about 10:30 a.m., officers forced entry into the home and discovered Jones' father and stepmother dead, both with gunshot wounds.
A shelter-in-place order was briefly in place on the college campus before authorities determined there was no larger threat.
Jones was carried by his arms and legs into a courtroom while shackled on Oct. 29, footage from WKYC Channel 3 shows. After the proceeding, he was wheeled out on a rolling chair. In court, he said he goes by the name Asia Nguyen-duy, is unemployed and a street musician. A judge set bond at $3 million.
Prosecutor Zachary Simonoff said in court that when officers found the suspect, he had scratches on his face and injuries on his hand and arm. He told officers he killed his family, Simonoff said. A gun has not been recovered in the investigation, he said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oberlin professor, wife killed in shooting; son charged with murder
