DNA Leads to Arrest in ’94 Killing

New DNA analysis of blood recovered from a fatal stabbing 10 years ago in Chinatown led the district attorney’s office to charge a La Puente man with murder Friday in the death of his former employer, officials said.

Thanh Chi Phung, 43, was being held on $1.02-million bail for allegedly stabbing Rosemary Hom, 43, of Pasadena 20 times in her Mazda van, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lewin said. Officials said the two worked together at a bakery in Chinatown and that Phung was fired for alleged theft.

Hom was last seen alive by another employee as she drove into a parking garage near the bakery at 9 a.m. on Nov. 5, 1994, police said. The employee saw Hom’s van leave 20 minutes later, but did not see who was driving, investigators said.

Police found the van in an industrial area about a mile away. Hom’s body lay on the backseat floorboard, and her purse, identification, credit cards and jewelry were missing, officials said.

Investigators recovered samples of the blood of two people in the parking garage and Hom’s van. Some of the blood was Hom’s, but the identity of the other person whose blood was recovered was not known until a month ago, when a state DNA databank identified the blood as Phung’s, police said.

Phung was arrested Thursday. He is to be arraigned on Tuesday.