Lam trial hears "abusive" mother spent three days in nursing home

Ottawa Citizen

24-06-2025

Worried about their mother's increasingly abusive behaviour, the Lam family moved her out of the Bowmount Street townhouse she shared with her two adult daughters and into a nursing home.
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But 88-year-old Kieu Lam lasted only three days in the nursing home before her son, Minh Huynh, brought her back to Bowmount Street.
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Testifying through a Cantonese interpreter Tuesday at the first-degree murder trial of his two sisters, Minh told court he did not want his mother to die unhappy in a nursing home, where she had difficulty communicating. Kieu spoke only Cantonese. Huynh told court he loved his mother despite her history of abuse, and sometimes, violence.
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'She is my mother,' he told court.
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Minh said he thought his mother's behaviour would change after living in the nursing home, but that didn't happen. He told court her behaviour returned to normal after a few days, then became worse.
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Sisters Chau Kanh Lam, 59, and Hue Ai Lam, 62, have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of their mother. Court has heard their mother was killed in her bed just after midnight on Oct. 31, 2022 — just months after she left the nursing home.
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The Crown contends the Vietnamese-born sisters struck their defenceless mother in the head with a hammer as she was sleeping, then strangled her to death.
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The jury has heard Hue told police she struck her mother with a hammer and then gave the weapon to her sister. Hue said they had planned the attack for days because they could no longer live with their mother's verbal and physical abuse.
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'Everything was collecting to the point where it broke the dam,' Hue told police interrogators through an interpreter.
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Under cross examination Tuesday from defence lawyer Paolo Giancaterino, Minh told court he lived in the Bowmount Street house with his mother and sisters for nine years, until 2001. Minh said he saw his mother control every aspect of his sisters' lives, and nag, scold and hit them.
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Minh said he did not escape his mother's approbation.
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'Sometimes, when there's anything she doesn't like, she can be nagging and nagging the whole day,' Minh told court.
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She would often insult them, he said, and say they weren't listening or were not smart. She complained about her food and the fact her daughters were unmarried, Minh said.