Bucks County mom pleads guilty to killing sons
A 40-year-old Upper Makefield woman will spend the rest of her life in prison for killing her sons and attempting to kill another man more than two years ago, a crime that stunned this affluent community as they grieved the loss of two young brothers by their mother.
In her second court appearance since her arrest last year, Trinh Nguyen entered open guilty pleas to two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jeffrey Tini, 13, and Nelson Tini, 9 and attempted murder of her ex-husband’s nephew.
Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Raymond McHugh accepted the pleas and sentenced Nguyen to two life sentences plus 10 to 20 years on the attempted murder. She will serve life without parole.
Nguyen choose not address the court, nor did Edward Tini, the biological father of Nelson Tini.
The plea spared Nguyen from a possible death penalty. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office filed a notice of aggravating circumstances in the case earlier this year.
The evidence displays a hardening of the heart and a wickedness of disposition,” by Nguyen, the judge said.
“This is a crime I don’t think anyone can understand,” McHugh said.
2022 shooting in Upper Makefield
Prosecutors have never provided a motive for the May 2, 2022 shootings, which occurred the day before Nguyen and her sons were to be evicted from their rented three-bedroom Timber Ridge Road home for failing to pay more than $11,000 in rent.
Nguyen’s lease with her ex-sister-in-law was terminated in late September 2021, about a month before her divorce from Edward Tini was finalized, court records show.
During the murder investigation, authorities found a handwritten note dated a week before the murders written by Nguyen. In it she allegedly wrote directions for what to do with her and her sons’ ashes.
She also allegedly left a note in the minivan revealing that her sons, both Council Rock District students, were dead and the address of the home with a request to call 911.
Custody issues before shooting of Tini brothers
Court records show that Nguyen was also involved in a custody dispute with her former husband, Edward Tini, of Philadelphia, with whom she shared custody of Nelson.
Nguyen had sole custody of Jeffrey Tini, whose father, her first husband, she divorced in 2009. Her oldest son, who was not involved in the 2022 shooting, lives with his father, Nguyen’s first husband, on the West Coast.
Shortly before the murders, Edward Tini filed paperwork in Bucks County family court seeking to stop Nguyen from taking Nelson to visit her family in her native Vietnam. In court documents, Tini called his ex-wife a “classic flight risk” and a “classic parent kidnapper.”
What police say happened
Prosecutors allege Nguyen shot her sons in their heads as they slept in their beds. The boys survived on life-support until their organs could be donated. They succumbed to their injuries four days later.
After shooting her sons, Nguyen went outside where she ran into Gianni Melchiondo as he was leaving for work. Melchiondo lived in another home on the property.
Nguyen gave Melchiondo a box of photos and asked him to give them to his uncle, Edward Tini. She then pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun did not fire.
The man wrestled the gun away from Nguyen, ran inside his home and locked the door, and Nguyen left in a minivan, according to police.
Nguyen claimed the gun was not loaded, but it was, police said.
She was arrested hours later in the parking lot of a nearby church. Authorities said Nguyen had heroin in her system in what police described as a suicide attempt.
Shortly after her arrest Nguyen was involuntarily committed to Norristown State Psychiatric Hospital for treatment where she remained until earlier this year when she was found to be mentally competent to stand trial.
Nguyen remains in Bucks County Jail without bail.