US woman sentenced to death for killing fortune teller and her daughter
A WOMAN convicted of murdering a fortune teller and her daughter was today sentenced to death by a judge in Orange County, California.
Mother-of-four Tanya Nelson, 45, did not react when Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank F Fasel imposed the sentence, the Orange County Register said.
She still denies committing the crimes, but in March a jury recommended the death penalty for Nelson, who resided in North Carolina, for the April 23, 2005, stabbing of Ha Smith, 52, and her 23-year-old daughter Anita Vo.
Nelson had been a long time client and friend of Mr(sic) Smith, who she allegedly murdered because a fortune did not come true.
A man who plead guilty to the murder of Mr(sic) Smith, Philippe Zamora, 55, told the court that Nelson felt cheated because Mr(sic) Smith told her that her business would do well if she re-located to North Carolina, but instead it went bust.
The LA Times reported that Nelson was arrested five weeks after the murders after she had assumed the identities of the victims and spent more than $US3000 in a shopping spree at South Coast Plaza.
And it’s nice to see that the foreign press also has layers of editorial oversight like the US media does. Either Ha Smith was a woman with a daughter, or “Mr.” Smith was in the midst of a sex-change the story failed to inform us of.
I don’t like to make light of another’s tragedy, but this story just hit me that way.