Lam Van Son, a 41-year-old man of Vietnamese descent, had successfully built a new life in Virginia Beach after fleeing his home country. A refugee who had been detained in a re-education camp after the fall of Saigon, he eventually immigrated to the United States. In Virginia, he met and married his wife, Lanna, also a Vietnamese refugee, and they had a young son named Joshua.
Together, they pursued the American dream, becoming the owners of two local bars, the Witchduck Inn and Lanna's Village Inn.
On the night of June 30, 1994, the vibrant and friendly atmosphere of the Witchduck Inn turned into a scene of unimaginable horror. Sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight, while his five-year-old son slept peacefully in an adjoining room, Lam Van Son was shot and killed during a robbery. He was not the only victim that night. Two of his employees, Karen S. Rounds, 31, and Wendel G. Parrish Jr., 32, along with a patron, Abdelaziz Gren, 34, were also tragically murdered. The gruesome discovery was made by a customer who, finding the front door locked, entered through an open back door.
The investigation into the quadruple homicide led to the arrests of Michael David Clagett and his girlfriend, Denise Rayne Holsinger. Holsinger had previously been employed as a waitress at the bar. The couple was charged with multiple counts of capital murder and robbery. During the subsequent trials, it was revealed that Clagett and Holsinger had entered the bar to rob it, and then shot the four victims.
For their roles in the heinous crime, both were convicted. Denise Holsinger was sentenced to life in prison. Michael David Clagett received the death penalty and was executed by electric chair on July 6, 2000. Before his execution, Clagett expressed remorse in letters to Lam Van Son's son, Joshua, who was unharmed in the attack. The brutal end to Lam Van Son's life was a stark and tragic conclusion to his journey from a refugee seeking freedom to a successful business owner in his adopted homeland.
