Police suspected ‘murder-suicide’ in Prince Rupert family’s deaths: B.C. official

An inquest into the deaths of a B.C. family of four has heard for the first time that police characterized the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide, as well as a recorded police interview describing the bloody scene at a home in Prince Rupert, B.C.

Julie Furlaino, director of operations for the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development in Prince Rupert, offered the first description of how Christopher Duong, Janet Nguyen and their two young sons might have died in June 2023.

Duong had been detained under the Mental Health Act and brought to Prince Rupert Regional Hospital after being pulled over with his family in a pickup truck at 2 a.m., telling police they had to keep driving or they would be killed in a “hit.”

The coroner’s inquest heard Duong was released a few hours after he was admitted, but three days later, on June 13, 2023, all four members of the family were found dead.

Furlaino, who was asked to clarify what information police had provided for the ministry’s “case review” form, testified that the family was suspected to have died “of the murder-suicide.”

Audio recordings of police interviews at the scene were played for the hearing on Wednesday, with witnesses depicting Duong’s “strange” and “paranoid” mental state after he was released from hospital.

The depictions contrasted with those of a doctor who did a psychiatrist assessment before Duong’s release, and said he was “friendly and calm.”

Erik Vandenberg, an associate of Duong, told an officer he had been the one to call 911 after the bodies were found, said Duong had continued to believe people were watching him after his June 10 hospital discharge.

He said Duong had not been sleeping and was “extremely paranoid,” posing the possibility he might have been on drugs.

Vandenberg said he felt Duong’s mental state seemed to be improving and thought the family had been napping when the bodies were found. Vandenberg said he was asleep on a couch when he was woken by Nguyen’s mother, Hieu Chu, who told him the family was dead.

He described to the officer what he saw upstairs.

“There’s blood on the floor. He had cut marks (on) his wrist or maybe his leg,” he said of Duong, noting he did not stay long enough to see Nguyen’s injuries, or if she had “slit marks.” He said he later learned the two boys were also “not breathing.”

A recording of an interview that day with Chu, translated from Vietnamese in real time, also painted a picture of Duong’s mental state.

Chu said he had been “acting strange” after he returned from the hospital, was paranoid and kept pacing back and forth.

Chu said her husband found the bodies when he attempted to wake the family up for dinner.

A doctor who testified at the inquest earlier Wednesday said that Duong told him in a June 10 psychiatric assessment that he had no suicidal or homicidal intent, and he was sickened by the discovery of their bodies three days later.

Dr. Gerald Belgardt, who was Christopher Duong’s longtime family physician as well as a doctor at Prince Rupert Regional Hospital, told the inquest that Duong was “very friendly and calm and co-operative” in the assessment at the hospital on June 10, 2023.

Belgardt said he knew Duong for 25 years and on Tuesday he described his interview with Duong before his discharge from the hospital.

“I asked him if there was any suicidal intent or homicidal intent and he said absolutely — very calm and clear voice — that he was not,” Belgardt said, adding that Duong had no signs of “any mental distress whatsoever.”

The doctor told the inquest Wednesday that there was no reason to keep Duong under the Mental Health Act, saying he believed the most accurate diagnosis of Duong’s mental state at the time was an acute stress disorder.

When asked what may have caused it, Belgardt said “apparently (Duong) got news that somebody was out to murder him and his family.”

The doctor said Duong later classified that belief as a “misunderstanding and the situation has been clarified,” and that he reported that he no longer believed that to be the case.

“I believed him when he said that.”

Belgardt said he was shocked to later learn of the deaths.

“I was devastated, shocked, surprised, sick to my stomach. I’m still sick every day when I think about it — for two and a half years now. This is going to affect me every day for the rest of my life.”

A notice of civil claim filed by B.C.’s director of civil forfeiture in 2015 describes Duong as a “violent gang member and drug trafficker” who was well known to police, while the inquest has heard that Duong was rumoured once to have been involved in the Prince Rupert drug trade.

On Tuesday, Matthew Jones, a former RCMP officer who had detained Duong, told the inquest that he had “no concerns” about Nguyen as a caregiver for her two boys.

He also said he felt he had no option but to intervene when he encountered Nguyen and Duong driving around Prince Rupert at 2 a.m., because the children were with them.

Jones said Duong — who he had known for about a decade and was his neighbour — told him the threat on the family’s life was based on a “feeling” and not an actual threat.

Jones said that if he “had any belief, a one-per-cent belief” that there was a hit out on Mr. Duong, he would have allowed the couple to keep driving as “grown adults,” but that the presence of the children was significant.

“I’m still gonna try to investigate the best I can, even without your co-operation, but you don’t get to do that to your kids, No,” he told counsel for the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Maureen Abraham.

The inquest heard Wednesday that an intake social worker with the Ministry of Children and Family Development was contacted by police and assessed whether a social worker needed to make contact with the family after Duong was apprehended.

Social worker Scott Bertram testified that there is typically a five-day window to make contact with families after a report is made, but that can be overridden in some situations for a quicker response.

Bertram testified that, in this case, he understood that Duong had been admitted involuntarily into the hospital. When asked how important that was in deciding not to override the usual five-day response time in this case, he called it a “big determinant.”

“The fact that he was in hospital and would remain in hospital — that to me was a situation which showed we did not need to respond immediately to this concern,” Bertram said.

He said if he had known Duong was to be released a few hours later, he “would have upgraded that response to 24-hours.”

But Bertram testified the ministry would only learn about the release of a patient under the Mental Health Act if the hospital proactively reached out and informed them.

Sheri Pringle, a social worker tasked with contacting the family, said she tried to phone Nguyen in the early afternoon of June 13. She said an unidentified man picked up and told her Nguyen was not available. Pringle tried again that afternoon but was unsuccessful, she said.

Furlaino confirmed that the next day, on June 14, her office was informed of the deaths.

A coroner’s inquest is a non-fault-finding inquiry that aims to determine facts related to a death, make recommendations to prevent similar deaths and to ensure public confidence in the process.

If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, support is available 24/7 by calling or texting 988, Canada’s national suicide prevention helpline.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2026.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press