Teen Shot, Killed Outside Home

BOSTON -- A Dorchester family is grieving the loss of a 19-year-old woman who was shot outside her home Monday night on Owencroft Road. Boston police said they got to the scene as soon as they could, but the family said it was not fast enough.

NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu reported that police said it was not a random shooting. Although the victim did not know her killer, police said, the shooters were targeting the house.

Nhuan Nguyen immigrated from Vietnam as a baby. She had just moved to Philadelphia, but had returned to her Boston home to pick up some books. The family is trying to raise money to return her body to Vietnam for burial.

According to her family, at about 10 p.m. Monday, Nhuan was confronted by three strangers outside her home.

"Three of these guys came up to her and threatened that they were going to kill everyone tonight and bring down the house," said Nhuan's cousin, Phyllis Nguyen.

Nguyen said they called the police about the threat, but at least 30 minutes passed without word from the police or the perpetrators. Thinking the threats were a prank, Nguyen said Nhuan stepped out on the porch to have a cigarette.

"We heard a gunshot -- bang. And we turned around and we looked and she was on the floor," Nguyen said.

But according to the Boston police, only 11 minutes lapsed between the original call at 10:33 p.m. reporting the threat and police officers arriving at the scene at 10:44 p.m.

"That is impossible because at 10:43 is when she got shot. We carried her from in here, she was lying on the floor. We carried her inside. Halfway into the house we stopped, and she kept bleeding and we were scared that they might shoot again. And we carried her all the way inside to the middle of the room. We kept waiting and (a police officer) came and we carried her back out," said Nguyen.

"This is someone who is experiencing a traumatic shock. Time expands. So what may look to a person in a normal, rational situation to be 5 or 10 seconds, to someone under stress, that could be 3 minutes, that could be 5 minutes," said Boston police Superintendent Robert Dunford.

Dunford did not say who the intended target might have been. He said there was some confusion about the address and some language problems. He also said another homicide two hours earlier did not delay the response.

No arrests have been made.

Nhuan Nguyen is the city's 30th homicide of 2006.