Thirty-two-year-old David Nam is on trial after jumping bail as a teen and causing his parents to forfeit $100,000 cash surety. The parents later left the U.S. as well and followed their son to their homeland.
In opening statements Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson said Nam led three juveniles in the fatal robbery of a North Philadelphia retiree. And they say he confessed in documents found when he was extradited back to the U.S. in 2008.
Nam's defense lawyer suggested that one of the juveniles played the lead role - and may have supplied the murder weapon.
On the run since 1998
David Nam, the son of immigrant parents, grew up in relative affluence in the Philadelphia suburbs, where his father helped run a textile business.
Yet by 19, prosecutors say, Nam belonged to a North Philadelphia street gang and orchestrated the 1996 home-invasion robbery of a retired warehouse worker.
Anthony Schroeder perhaps looked like an easy target. He lived alone and was known to stay up late on summer nights with the front door open for air. But after several prior robbery attempts in his, the 75-year-old World War II veteran was watching TV that night with a firearm on his lap. When he heard a commotion on his porch, he walked to the door with the gun, prosecutors said.
"Nam panics, shoots him through the screen door in the chest," Assistant District Attorney Mark Gilson said on the eve of Nam's long-delayed trial for the slaying.
Nam was set to go on trial in March 1998, but cut off his electronic monitor just before and fled to South Korea, his parents' homeland.
The parents also returned to their homeland, where authorities believe they remained in secret contact with their son, who morphed from an alleged young thug in Philadelphia to a married English teacher and father of three in South Korea.
Nam's trial is expected to last at least a week.
