Murder trial begins for former fugitive

Fourteen years ago he went by the street name "Solid" and led a small group of younger Olney teens who called themselves "ABZ," or the AsianBoyz.

This morning - after 10 years as a fugitive hiding in South Korea - David Nam went to trial as a 32-year-old man, dressed in a black business suit, facing murder charges in the 1996 of 77-year-old retiree Anthony Schroeder.

"It's over 13 years for this case to come to justice but it starts today," Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson said in his opening statement to a Common Pleas Court jury.

Gilson said the evidence will show that Nam shot Schroeder in the chest with a .22-caliber rifle when he noticed the elderly man had a gun, as he and three 14-year-olds tried to barge into Schroeder's rowhouse at 3 a.m. on Aug. 16, 1996.

Gilson said Nam incrminated himself by fleeing the country and on handwritten notes discovered on his extradition papers shortly before the FBI accompanied him on a flight from South Korea to Philadelphia.

Nam's notes were drafts to South Korean officials pleading for them to block extradition and Gilson said they read, "I'm guilty, I did it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kill the old man."

"This isn't a who-done-it, it's not a murder mystery," Gilson told the jury. "It isn't now and it never will be."

Defense attorney Michael E. Wallace told the jury in his opening statement that the defense case would focus on one of Nam's three associates in the 1996 shooting, Robert Souvannavong, now 28, who like the other two pleaded guilty and told authorities Nam pulled the trigger.

Wallace said the plot to break in to Schroeder's home at Fourth Street and Olney Avenue was was hatched at Souvannavong's home a block away and that Souvannavong may have provided the murder weapon.

Souvannavong also returned to Schroeder's house after the shooting and stole the elderly man's rifle and some cash, Wallace said.

"This case started and ended with Robert Souvannavong, this young 14-year-old," Wallace told the jurors.