‘A senseless and selfish act’: Judge sentences couple who murdered neighbour, discarded body over BBQ smoke
The couple who were out on custody until the day of the guilty verdict when their bail was revoked have spent 146 days in pre-sentence custody.
A Liberty Village couple has been handed severe sentences for the murder of their upstairs neighbor, Reeyaz Habib, and the subsequent cover-up. Khoa Tran, 36, was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 16 years after being found guilty of second-degree murder. Tran's wife, Quynh (Isabelle) Nguyen, 30, received a six-year prison term for accessory after the fact to manslaughter and for disposing of a dead body.
Superior Court Justice Philip Campbell rejected the idea of a conditional sentence for Nguyen, stating that a prolonged custodial sentence would lead to immediate deportation back to Vietnam. The couple, who lived in a condo on the main floor, had a neighbor, filmmaker Habib, living alone in the unit above them. The Crown argued that Tran killed Habib in the early hours of June 6, 2023, after a series of confrontations over Tran's barbecue smoke bothering Habib's windows.
Following the murder, Habib's body was discovered in a trash compactor, with handwritten notes containing DNA evidence linking Tran, Nguyen, and Habib. The judge found the murder to be "a senseless and selfish act," emphasizing Tran's plan to eliminate the inconvenience Habib posed to his barbecue and avoid a complaint from the condominium board.
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