A judge on Aug. 12 handed down a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole to a gay man who drugged a 23-year-old blond straight man before sexually assaulting him in 2008 and then dumping his body in an alley.
He then added 10 years consecutively for Philong Huynh, 41, to serve for sexually assaulting a 20-year-old U.S. Marine who provided clues for police to arrest Huynh in 2009 and halt his dangerous compulsion to befriend young straight men and rape them after they were drugged.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert O’Neill fined Huynh $10,804, which may be taken from any prison earnings that Huynh gets from menial jobs in prison. He also ordered Huynh to pay $3,207 in restitution to Jim and Valen Williams, the parents of Dane Williams, of Huntington Beach.
Their son, who was last seen alive very intoxicated in the Gaslamp Quarter on Jan. 26, 2008, vanished, but his body was found three days later in an alley in the 5200 block of Landis Street which is just 800 feet from where Huynh lived.
“Philong Huynh, your days of terror are over,” said Valen Williams angrily. “You were such a coward …you are a predator. I honestly cannot fathom how your evil mind works.”
“Losing Dane was gut wrenching. I ache for him every single day,” said his mother. “It is a constant struggle to stay focused and go forward.”
“Philong Huynh showed no remorse after Dane’s death. Philong Huynh, you are an evil person in every sense of the word,” said Jim Williams angrily. “You robbed a mother and father of a son, a very special young man.”
“After today, when you go to prison, you’ll be judged again, but this time it’s going to be by your fellow inmates … at the bottom of the inmate food chain,” said Jim Williams.
Huynh, dressed in jail blue clothing and with security chains around his waist, didn’t look at the victim’s parents when they spoke. He showed no reaction and said nothing in court.
His attorney, Terry Zimmerman, argued against imposing the extra 10 years for the sentence and filed an appeal of the jury’s verdicts on Friday. She had argued he was not a killer and noted the lack of a determined cause of death for Williams.
There were high concentrations of benzodiazepines and alcohol in Williams’ system, but the medical examiner couldn’t determine if it was a fatal overdose. Huynh obtained the sedatives in Mexico.
Williams was in town for a convention with Hurley International, a clothing company where he worked. Some of his co-workers, friends and family members packed the courtroom for the sentencing.
The case against Huynh was so strong that a jury deliberated only 92 minutes June 24 before convicting him of first-degree murder, and the special circumstances of murder during sodomy and oral copulation by an intoxicating anesthetic.
Williams’ body was wrapped inside a striped comforter from Huynh’s bedroom. Huynh’s DNA in semen was found in Williams’ mouth and anus, and there were 17 dog hairs on the comforter that came from his mother’s dog.
Four other young men testified they were befriended by Huynh and drugged, and when they woke up their underwear and watches were missing. One young man woke up in a motel in Tijuana and he had no identification, money or phone.
In a sentencing report, a probation officer wrote there were 22 watches found in Huynh’s residence in Southeast San Diego. One watch matched the watch that Williams wore.
The report said the watches may be Huynh’s habit of “keeping a ‘trophy’ from each of his conquests.”
Huynh went to medical school for two years and studied the effects of drugs as training to become a pharmacist, but he dropped out. He was convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 19-year man who was mentally disabled in Arizona in 1998.
O’Neill noted he had served 702 days in jail, but it can’t be deducted from a sentence of life without parole.
