Fort Worth homeowner shot at unarmed thief 5 times, killing her, murder warrant says
When he saw motion on his home surveillance cameras early Sunday, Ngon Van Dinh grabbed his rifle and went outside of his Fort Worth home in the 5400 block of Dallas Avenue.
In recent weeks, Dinh had had problems with thefts at his home, and he wasn’t going to let someone steal his property, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
When he went outside, Dinh saw a woman pulling his kids’ red wagon with his property in it near his driveway, according to the affidavit.
He confronted the woman, who was now standing in the street, ordering the suspected thief several times to lie down. He told police he remembers her saying in a loud voice, “You gonna shoot me?,” according to the affidavit.
Dinh told Fort Worth police that because he felt threatened when the woman, later identified as Ana Olivo, answered in a loud voice and he wanted to stop her to give police time to get there, he fired five times. He continued to shoot even when the woman turned around and ran away, according to the warrant obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Wednesday.
Olivo, 28, was critically wounded and ran to a nearby home, where Fort Worth police found her. She later died at a local hospital.
Dinh, 44, was interviewed shortly after the shooting Sunday, but he wasn’t immediately taken into custody.
The Fort Worth homeowner was booked into jail on Tuesday afternoon and faces a charge of murder. He was arrested after police viewed his home surveillance video, which showed the woman did not have a weapon and was backing away from Dinh when he shot her, according to the affidavit.
Dinh was in the Tarrant County Jail on Wednesday with bond set at $100,000.
The warrant written by Fort Worth Detective P.A. Vega noted that the shooting occurred shortly after 12;30 a.m. Sunday in the 5400 block of Dallas Avenue.
When they arrived, Fort Worth police saw multiple shell casings in the street in front of Dinh’s home.
After finding the woman with his property and ordering her to get down, Dinh told detectives, he fired at her one time before she turned around and ran away.
That’s when he fired four other times, according to the warrant.
Dinh is blind in one eye and has 70 percent vision in his other eye, Fort Worth police said in the warrant.
The surveillance video, which Fort Worth police did not release, showed the woman pushing an office chair with property on top as she neared Dinh’s home.
She opened a gate at Dinh’s driveway, entered his yard, took the red wagon and then exited the yard, according to the warrant.
Dinh appeared in the video confronting and talking to the woman at gunpoint. She did not have anything in her hands.
The woman backed away, and abandoned the property near the driveway gate, the warrant stated.
The woman continued backing away when Dinh braced himself on the gate and fired five times.
