A quiet Saturday night in a well-kept Wichita neighborhood was shattered on November 25, 2017, with the violent deaths of Houng Pham, a 62-year-old Asian woman, and her 23-year-old son, Cody Ha. The grim discovery was made by Pham's daughter when she arrived at their home on East Huntington late that evening to find her mother and brother unconscious and bloody; both had been shot to death.
The case was immediately treated as a double homicide by the Wichita police.
In a strange turn of events, the sounds of the fatal gunshots were apparently heard by witnesses hundreds of miles away. Cody Ha was an avid online gamer, and at the time of the incident, he was actively playing with several friends who were in different locations, including one in Houston, Texas. His friends later recounted hearing loud popping noises through their gaming headsets, which they initially dismissed. It was only later they realized they may have been unwitting audio witnesses to the murders. After hearing the sounds, they tried to call Cody, but their calls went unanswered. They then heard what they believed to be his sister's panicked arrival at the home.
The investigation into the double homicide led police to look into the activities at the residence. Neighbors reported that there was frequent and unusual traffic to and from the house. A friend of Cody Ha's told investigators that Cody had mentioned people coming to their home to purchase prescription drugs, suggesting a possible motive for the violent encounter. Police also explored a potential connection to another murder that occurred the same weekend just a few blocks away, where a pizza delivery driver was found shot to death in the trunk of his car, though a definitive link was never established.
Despite the intriguing leads and the chilling account from the online gaming witnesses, the case grew cold. The Wichita Police Department has not publicly identified any suspects in the murders of Houng Pham and Cody Ha. No arrests have been made in the years following their deaths, and the case is now listed as an unsolved homicide, leaving a family and a community searching for answers.
