Nguyễn Võ Quỳnh Tràng. Photo laodong.com.vn

HCM CITY  — The Investigation Police Unit in Hồ Chí Minh City late on Tuesday proposed the prosecution of Nguyễn Võ Quỳnh Trang, 27, for the murder and torture of her stepdaughter, an 8-year-old girl who died in December last year.

The child's father, Nguyễn Kim Trung Thái, 37, was prosecuted for torturing others and cover-up crimes.

Three months after the shocking case where Trang tortured her stepdaughter to death at home, the city police have completed their investigation and transferred the case to the city’s procuracy body for prosecution.

Thái lived with his wife Trang at Saigon Pearl Apartment Building (Ward 22, Bình Thạnh District). His daughter N.T.V.A. also lived with them.

On the evening of December 22, 2021, V.A. was taken to Vinmec Hospital (Bình Thạnh), where doctors determined the girl had suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest and died before reaching the hospital.

Trang was arrested a day later, following a hospital report on the girl's unusual wounds and injuries, before being prosecuted on charges of “torturing others” on December 28.

Thái was detained on December 31 on suspicion of the same crime.

Police in Bình Thạnh transferred the case to the municipal Department of Public Security for further investigation on January 1 due to its serious nature.

At the investigating agency, Thái said that Trang had sometimes beaten and yelled at V.A. during their time living together at the apartment from May 2020.

The situation turned worse when she started tutoring the child in online lessons in October 2021, with the woman using her hands, feet, wooden sticks, iron sticks, plastic pipe and rattan whips to beat the girl.

Camera footage recovered later revealed that Trang had violently abused the girl many times and Thái witnessed it but did not intervene. Thái admitted that he had also beaten his daughter several times.

On December 22, V.A. was brutally and repeatedly abused for four hours before her death. Thái said that he went to work and did not witness the abuse.

Trang told Thái about her actions. However, he did not report it to the police and deleted all the data in the family’s camera. VNS