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Monterey Park killer Huu Can Tran, 72, was an ‘unhappy’ man with no ‘family, money or future’ who had racked up a series of grievances against his ex-wife and the owners and instructors of the two dance halls. where he massacred 11 people on Saturday night.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, a former friend who asked not to be named for fear of backlash, described Tran as suspicious of other people and paranoid.
He said: ‘He mistrusted people a lot and was angry with a lot of people.
“He spent years accumulating unhappiness and discontent towards people.
Huu Can Tran, 72, shot himself in a van on Sunday after being surrounded by SWAT teams. His motive for the rampage at Star Dance Studio remains unconfirmed, but police sources say it was a “domestic dispute.” He is shown in surveillance footage from Saturday.
Floral tributes are piled on the site of the weekend massacre perpetrated by Huu Can Tran
People left floral tributes at the site of one of the shootings Monday throughout the day.
“He was always complaining about people, especially the heads of those two studios and the instructors who worked there. He would say, ‘they’re not nice to me’ and ‘they’re saying bad things behind my back’.
I think he was paranoid, delusional.
The 76-year-old said he met Tran more than a decade ago, when he rented an apartment from him in Arcadia, California.
He said that initially things had gone well and that he had always paid his rent on time.
But that changed when Tran sold the apartment and the two men moved into a different property together.
Hero Brandon Tsay, 26, seized the gun from Huu Can Tran’s hands after he turned up at the Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio in Alhambra on Saturday night looking for more victims. Tran, shown wearing a hat and dressed entirely in black, had just killed ten people in another studio.
Shortly after he was seen at the hospital for treatment, the police detained Tran. A SWAT team surrounded the van after a three-hour standoff.
He says they had started the lease as friends, but that changed after he took a month’s vacation in Taiwan.
The former friend said: ‘When I returned, I found a cold shoulder and a stone face.
He didn’t talk to me at all.
When the friend moved out, Tran tried to withhold his $750 security deposit, claiming he had broken a sink when it had just been left dirty.
The dispute ultimately ended in court: the judgment, entered in January 2015, went against Tran and he was ordered to repay the money plus $300 in costs.
“I was trying to find all kinds of reasons why the deposit was gone,” the former friend said. “I won the case and as soon as we walked out of court he handed me a check.
“That was the last time I saw him, I never wanted to see his face again.”
The former friend says Tran would also complain about his ex-wife Helen Lai, 59, whom he divorced in 2006 citing “irreconcilable differences”.
Monterey Park Mayor Henry Lo kneels at a makeshift memorial outside the scene of a deadly mass shooting at a ballroom dance studio Monday in Monterey Park, California.
People cry outside the entrance to the Star Ballroom Dance Studio after a mass shooting during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Monterey Park, California.
The Star Dance Studio in Monterey Park, which was attacked Saturday night.
Tran was also identified as the gunman who entered the Lai Lai dance hall in nearby Alhambra just 20 to 30 minutes after the first shooting, but was thwarted by brave patrons.
Court documents obtained by DailyMail.com show the couple married between June 2001 and separated on December 31, 2005, with the speedy divorce signed on May 9, 2006.
According to the documents, it was the alleged mass murderer Tran who filed for divorce and represented himself during the process.
In her divorce petition, Tran requested ‘all assets, earnings, acquired property, and debts incurred before the marriage and after the separation.
‘All goods and property acquired by gift, inheritance or inheritance.’
A copy of the agreement shows that Lai agreed to his request: The former couple divided their assets based on who had what when they married, each allowing the other to keep the money they personally earned during the marriage.
The former couple also agreed not to ask for spousal support and to waive any claim to each other’s homes.
The struggle was at the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in the Alhambra, the gunman’s second stop
Despite the friendly-sounding agreement, police in Hemet, California revealed that Tran twice complained about “past fraud and theft” by his family in recent weeks.
According to a statement released Monday, Tran visited the police department on January 7 and 9, where he alleged “past allegations of theft, fraud and poisoning by his family in the Los Angeles area 10 to 20 years ago.” a period of time that corresponds with your marriage.
The statement continued: “Tran stated that he would return to the station with documentation on his allegations, but he never returned.”
Tran’s friend said he never mentioned the poisoning to her, but he believed she was “tricking” him into selling his trucking business.
He said: ‘Sometimes he would mention his wife and how she used to work in his trucking business. He said she tricked him into selling her truck and her business.
Lai spoke briefly to CNN on Sunday night, telling the outlet that Tran could be “quick to anger” but was never violent towards her.
After an hour-long standoff, Tran died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the van he used to flee after his attempted second shooting was thwarted by ‘hero’ patrons on Saturday.
She recounted how the couple met at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, the Monterey Park venue that was the scene of Saturday night’s mass shooting, where she performed and offered free lessons.
After they got married, he would get upset if she missed a dance move because he “felt it made him look bad”.
The couple broke up after four years when “he lost interest in her,” according to Lai.
On Monday, Lai’s home in Rosemead, just over two miles from the scene of the massacre, was deserted when DailyMail.com visited.
Neighbors told DailyMail.com that the 59-year-old woman has not been home since Sunday night and they do not know where she went.
The friend, meanwhile, says he’s not surprised by what happened and believes Tran chose Lunar New Year because in Chinese culture, the date represents the closing of an era.
He said: ‘Chinese New Year is the end of a period and I think he chose this time to complete it.
“I had accumulated so much hate and I think I wanted to end there. She knew this would happen one day: she hated many of the people who worked in the ballrooms.
“He was getting older, he had no happiness, he had no family, no money, no future. People in those circumstances do crazy things.
“It’s so unfair: the people he killed were innocent.”