On the morning of October 30, 2017, Palmer police were sent to a home on Daron Drive, where they found Tuan Q. Nguyen, male age 32, dead inside his apartment from multiple gunshot wounds. Officers encountered a man waiting outside: 40-year-old Duyvu V. Nguyen from Anchorage, who identified himself as the shooter. Investigators noted a. 45-caliber handgun at the scene, and charging documents described wounds to Tuan's head.
Duyvu told police he had come to the apartment after his wife reported a sexual assault; at the time police said that allegation was uncorroborated and still being investigated. He was arrested at the scene on a charge of first-degree murder.
In the days that followed, the picture of the relationship between the two men sharpened. Authorities said the men were not related. Trial coverage later reported that Tuan had previously worked at a nail salon owned by Duyvu in Anchorage and that Duyvu called 911 after the shooting; he was released on bail about a month later while the case moved toward trial.
Nearly six years after the killing, a Palmer jury heard the case. Prosecutors argued that Duyvu drove from Anchorage to the Mat-Su Valley looking for Tuan after learning of an alleged affair between Tuan and Duyvu's wife, Xuanlan Tran, entered Tuan's apartment, and shot him three times in the head. The defense claimed self-defense rooted in the sexual-assault allegation. After a nearly two-week trial, jurors rejected the self-defense claim and found Duyvu Nguyen guilty of first- and second-degree murder on May 5, 2023; officials emphasized that the two Nguyens were not related. Sentencing was set for October 19, 2023.
From the moment of the 911 call to the final verdict, the case turned on motive and intent: an early allegation of sexual assault that police initially could not corroborate, a drive from Anchorage to Palmer, a confrontation inside an apartment, and a confession at the doorway with the weapon nearby. The arrest at the scene in 2017 and the 2023 conviction closed the loop on the investigation into the death of Tuan Q. Nguyen, male, 32, in Palmer, Alaska.
