Gaithersburg Man Indicted for Murder of 12-Year-Old Stepdaughter

A grand jury today indicted David Rich Hang, the Gaithersburg man accused of killing his 12-year-old stepdaughter Jessica Nguyen in May, the Gazette reports.

Hang, who has been in custody since police arrested him in October, will have his trial date scheduled at a Dec. 22 hearing. He worked for the County as a RideOn bus driver for four years.

He is charged with first degree murder.

Nguyen was found in the basement of her family's former home in the 700 block of Raven Avenue on May 31. Police have said she was stabbed more than 40 times.

Assistant State's Attorney Stephen Chaikin said at a preliminary hearing in November that Hang, an American citizen, married Nguyen's mother in 2006 as part of a scheme to gain her citizenship.

Detective Dan Krill said at the hearing that between $20,000 and $25,000 was paid to Hang by the family.

But Chaikin asserted that Hang felt Nguyen's mother was not working for a speedy divorce like they had agreed to, and Hang began making threatening phone calls to the family.

Krill confirmed the calls were made.

"He said to a family member, if they didn't sign the paper, something bad was going to happen to your family," he said.

Brian D. Shefferman, the public defender representing Hang, questioned the credibility of Krill's testimony and the facts laid out in the charging documents.

Krill, Shefferman said, was not even one of the detectives assigned to the case.

Krill said he had followed it closely.

The case against Hang centers around boot prints and an empty knife sheath found in the basement of the Nguyen home on Raven Avenue in the Hidden Creek neighborhood in Gaithersburg. Statements made today by police and prosecutors, combined with court documents, lay out the following timeline starting on May 31:

Jessica Nguyen and her sister Belinda got home from Gaithersburg Middle School at around 3 p.m. and went to their upstairs bedroom, where Jessica’s sister fell asleep.

Three hours later, their aunt woke Belinda up, asking where Jessica was. Belinda found Jessica’s bloody body in the basement, amid boxes that had been packed for the family’s move to a new home the following day.

Police arrived about an hour later. They found a sheath “without a matching sword,” footprints around Jessica’s body and no signs of forced entry into the home.

“We started looking at anyone and everyone that had access to that house,” Manger said. "... We were keeping the options wide open. There was nothing that pointed us immediately to anybody. “

Blood samples taken from the sheath showed a “mixed profile” of DNA that “can only be used for elimination purposes,” according to charging documents.