GIRL FIGHT - TO THE DEATH: THE KILLING OF KIM PHAM

[HairOfTheDog]

Kim Pham, 23 - beaten to death outside club in Santa Ana, California

Annie Hung Kim Pham's brain was "markedly swollen," although she had no skull fractures, said Dr. Eoti Davenport, a pathologist with the Orange County California sheriff's department who conducted the autopsy. She had bruising behind her left ear, on the right side of her head, on her forehead and in her eyes, as well as smaller contusions on her legs.




Vanesa Tapia Zavala, 25 and Candace Brito, 27, (pictured above) have pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in Pham's death. They listened to the testimony silently after the bailiff removed their handcuffs.

Pham was taken off life support after the Jan. 18 altercation outside a Santa Ana night spot called The Crosby.

Davenport said the autopsy was limited because she could not examine Pham's internal organs, which were donated.

The cause of death was blunt force injury to the head, she said. Davenport also said tests taken at the hospital indicated Pham was intoxicated at the time, but the coroner's office is still awaiting formal toxicology reports.

Officer Gerardo Corona said three people from Pham's group, including her ex-boyfriend, gave witness statements at the scene. All three said Pham was standing in line when one of the women bumped into her and then "two to three females immediately began attacking Ms. Pham," Corona said.

One witness told police Pham and the woman argued for a few seconds before the first woman punched Pham and then two more women joined in, knocking her to the ground where one of the women kicked her in the head, he said.

Defense attorneys argue Pham threw the first punch, however, and on cross-examination challenged testimony that indicated Pham was attacked with no provocation. Kenneth Reed, an attorney for Zavala, introduced the idea that Pham's friends — the only witnesses to speak with police at the scene — might have minimized their involvement in what was a bigger fight.

"Did any of them tell you that Ms. Pham told ... the female that bumped into her, 'Hey, watch where you're going, and I want an apology,'" Reed asked Corona, the police officer.

"You just kind of took the story — 'She got beat' — and you just kind of took the statements of these friends of hers?" he asked. "Fighting means fighting, more than one person fighting, right?"

Pham, who went by the first name Kim, graduated from Chapman University last year and would have celebrated her first wedding anniversary last week. She was an aspiring writer whose work was published online and in an anthology of works by Vietnamese-American writers. One of her essays dealt with her grief at losing her mother to breast cancer when Pham was 5.

The Crosby is the cornerstone of an area of Santa Ana that has undergone rapid urban gentrification, with live-work lofts, bars and trendy restaurants popping up along several blocks alongside a largely working-class and immigrant downtown core.
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Senseless violence.

I think police and prosecutors are gonna have a hard time getting a conviction given the fact that those involved and the witnesses were all likely intoxicated, unless the cell phone videos clearly show what went down.

RIP Kim Pham.