CRIME

Hearing for Upper Makefield mom accused of killing sons continued

Jo Ciavaglia
Bucks County Courier Times

A preliminary hearing for an Upper Makefield mother accused of fatally shooting her two sleeping sons has been continued, nearly five months after the deaths shocked the quiet affluent community. 

Trinh Nguyen, 38, faces two, first-degree homicide charges and related charges in the May 2 shootings of Jeffrey and Nelson Tini, ages 13 and 9, inside the Timber Ridge Road home the family rented.  She remains incarcerated in Bucks County jail without bail. 

Nguyen is also accused of attempting to kill the nephew of her former husband, who lives in an adjacent home on the property she was renting. 

Jeffrey "JT" Tini, 13, and his brother, Nelson Tini, 9, were shot in their home Monday, May 2, 2022. Their mother, Trinh Nguyen has been charged.

Nguyen was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Tuesday in the Newtown District Court, but it was continued, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.  A new date has not been released.  

The Bucks County Public Defender’s Office is representing Nguyen and it requested the continuance, DA spokesman Manual Gamiz said. 

The mother of three was arrested in a nearby church parking lot hours after the two boys were found shot dead in their beds by police and their aunt, who owns the home where Nguyen and the boys lived. The boys were students in the Council Rock School District.

Authorities said she had heroin in her system in what police described as a suicide attempt. Nguyen allegedly left a handwritten note dated a week earlier with information on what to do with her and her sons’ ashes.

She also allegedly left a note in the minivan revealing that her sons were dead and the address of the home with a request to call 911. 

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Investigators work on the scene of an Upper Makefield home where two boys, 10 and 13 years old, were shot Monday morning. Their mother, 38-year-old Trinh Nguyen, was arrested and charged in the shooting, according to Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub.
Two bicycles sit parked outside an Upper Makefield home where two boys, 10 and 13 years old, were shot Monday morning. By noon, their mother, 38-year-old Trinh Nguyen, was taken into police custody for the shooting, according to Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub.

Prosecutors have given no motive for the shootings, which occurred the day before Nguyen was being evicted from the home for failing to pay more than $11,000 in rent.  

Nguyen was also involved in a custody dispute with her former husband, Edward Tini, of Philadelphia.  The couple divorced last year and Tini had opposed Nguyen’s plans to take Nelson to visit her family in Vietnam over the summer vacation. 

Nguyen had sole custody of Jeffrey Tini, whose father she divorced in 2009. She has a third son, who is 17, and lives on the West Coast with his father, Nguyen’s first husband.

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