This composite booking mug provided by the Craven County Sheriff’s Office, in North Carolina, shows Eh Lar Doh Htoo, 18, under arrest, Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Htoo is charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. Other charges are also expected. Three children, ages 1, 5 and 12, were stabbed to death and two other people were wounded in a Burmese community in New Bern, N.C. (AP Photo/Craven County Sheriff’s Office)
A police officer walks to his car during an investigation, Wednesday, March 18, 2015, of a triple homicide that took place late Tuesday, at a residence, in New Bern, N.C. Three children were stabbed to death and two other people were wounded in the attack. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Police in the quiet coastal town of New Bern, North Carolina have a grisly multiple slaying to investigate, allegedly committed by a neighbor who “speaks very little English, if any,” and doesn’t share the language of his victims, even though they’re all refugees from Myanmar.
Eh Lar Doh Htoo, 18, was appointed a defense attorney and advised of his rights Thursday, then held without bond on three counts of murder and one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
The hearing was scheduled, delayed and then held with little notice once a court-certified translator was found to dial into the courtroom.
Htoo is an ethnic Karen refugee from Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. Police say he carried a machete into his next-door neighbor’s home late Tuesday night and used it to kill three boys, ages 1, 5 and 12, then slashed the mother before she and her 14-year-old daughter escaped the house.
The father of the victims, ethnic Karennis who also fled Myanmar, was at work at the time.