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Murder warrant in double slaying along the Schuylkill

A murder warrant has been issued in last month's double slaying and abduction of two men found stabbed, bound, and beaten in the Schuylkill, in which another man who survived the attack was found stumbling along the riverbank, police said Monday.

Tam Le
Tam LeRead morePhiladelphia Police Department

A murder warrant has been issued in last month's double slaying and abduction of two men found stabbed, bound, and beaten in the Schuylkill, in which another man who survived the attack was found stumbling along the riverbank, police said Monday.

Police have said they believe the Aug. 28 killings were linked to Asian gangs.

On Monday, law enforcement sources said murder charges had been filed against Tam Le, 42, who lived in a Southwest Philadelphia home where investigators believe the three victims were tortured before being stabbed, taken to the river, weighted down, and tossed into the water.

The warrant for Le was approved, law enforcement sources said, after DNA from hair fibers on duct tape found in the yard of the Southwest Philadelphia house was linked to one of the victims.

A 23-year-old man whose identity has not been released survived the attack by playing dead on the riverbank. He swam to safety after being tossed into the water.

The other two men, brothers Vu Huynh, 31, and Viet Huynh, 28, both of Paoli, had their wrists bound with duct tape and their legs chained to buckets of tar, and were found in the shallows, their throats slashed.

Law enforcement sources said the brothers had been given $100,000 from an Asian crew to buy drugs but had gambled away most of it at Harrah's Philadelphia in Chester.

Unable to pay back about $60,000 of the total, they had been lured to Le's property on the 2400 block of South 72d Street, police said, where they were held captive in a backyard garage.

When the 23-year-old, who is originally from Vietnam, arrived at the house with all the money the group could muster, he was tied up and beaten with the others.

The night after the killing, U.S. marshals broke down the door to the house on 72d Street - where sources said Le lived with his wife and young children - but it was empty.

Investigators searched the home and the garage - as well as a trailer across the street, which police say contained a pot-growing operation. They discovered the tape and construction buckets similar to the ones used to weigh down the victims.

Homicide Capt. James Clark said Monday that Le has the "money and means" to travel, and that investigators are aware of several locations outside Pennsylvania that he had frequented in the past, Clark said.

"We are doing our best to track him," Clark said.

There is a $40,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Tipsters may call the Homicide Unit at 215-686-3334.