Murder Case Goes To Jury For Third Time

KENT - For the third time in a year, a King County Superior Court jury is deliberating the fate of a 19-year-old Seattle man accused of murdering a woman in connection with a drug deal gone sour.

Sokun Mam is accused of firing the shot that killed a young Seattle woman, Phong Inthahane. Two previous juries could not reach a verdict.

The jury in Judge Richard Ishikawa's courtroom began deliberating yesterday afternoon after about two weeks of testimony.

Mam has been in jail, held on $500,000 bail, since he was arrested in July 1996.

According to court documents, on July 5, 1996, Mam went to a home in the 4700 block of South Rose Street allegedly to buy marijuana. Witnesses testified that he returned to the home later, claiming to be dissatisfied, but the man who sold it to him had left.

Prosecutors maintain Mam sat down on a couch next to Inthahane and tried to initiate sex with her, but she refused and ordered him and his companion, Anthony Sayasack, out of the house.

Mam began to leave, then he paused on the stairs, and allegedly took out a semiautomatic handgun.

"There was fear in the apartment that night," Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Roger Davidheiser said in closing arguments. Davidheiser said that Mam fired five shots at Phong and that "a bullet ripped through her slight body." And then Mam fled as Phong took her last steps and died at the feet of a friend.

According to testimony, Mam allegedly told a companion, if the woman "ain't dead, I can't aim."

Seattle police investigated the shooting for several weeks before arresting Mam. They interviewed Sayasack and others who gave police several variations of the story. That, along with minimal physical evidence, attorneys say, made it difficult for previous juries to reach a verdict.

In closing arguments, defense attorney Donald Walther portrayed Mam as a man who had severed old gang connections and was being set up by others with gang affiliations who wanted to avoid being prosecuted for the murder themselves.

He also criticized the Seattle police investigation of the case, saying that police paid neighborhood children several dollars to look around the area for the missing three bullets, which were never found. He noted that before police finished investigating, the home was burglarized and the crime scene contaminated.

Should the newest jury also be unable to reach a decision, there would be no legal barrier to refiling charges against Mam for a fourth time, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the prosecutor's office. But prosecutors would have to evaluate refiling after a third hung jury, he said.

Nancy Bartley's phone message number is 206-515-5039. Her e-mail address is: nbar-new@seatimes.com