In a quiet home on Wichita's east side, the life of 23-year-old Hispanic male Cody Ha was violently cut short on the night of November 25, 2017. He and his 62-year-old mother, Huong Pham, were found shot to death in their residence in the 7500 block of East Huntington. The grim discovery was made by Ha's younger sister when she returned home from work around 11 p.m.
to find her brother and mother unconscious and covered in blood.
The evening had begun like many others for Ha, who was an avid online gamer. At around 10 p.m., while engrossed in a video game with friends who were hundreds of miles away, the sound of gunshots echoed through his microphone. His friends, listening from Texas and even Canada, heard the loud pops and their friend's subsequent silence. After their attempts to call him went unanswered, they heard his sister's panicked screams an hour later as she discovered the horrific scene.
Wichita police launched a double homicide investigation, but the case has remained unsolved with no suspects publicly identified or arrested. Investigators have explored various leads, including the possibility that the murders were not random. Friends of Ha mentioned that he had told them people would come to the house to purchase prescription drugs, and neighbors had noticed a higher volume of traffic to and from the residence. Court records also revealed that his mother, Huong Pham, had been involved in disputes over money in the years prior to her death, including one instance where she alleged someone had been hired to harm her.
Police also investigated a potential link to another homicide that occurred the same night just three blocks away, where a Pizza Hut delivery driver was found shot to death in the trunk of his car. Despite these avenues of investigation, authorities have not yet been able to make an arrest in the killings of Cody Ha and Huong Pham. The case is now considered a cold case, one of over 200 unsolved homicides the Wichita Police Department continues to investigate. A reward has been offered for information that could lead to solving the double homicide.
