‘If I can’t have her, no one can.’ Jury hears words Fresno man said after stabbing wife

Chinnawat Vue wanted so desperately to stop his 22-year-old wife and mother of their three children from leaving him for another man, that he did the unthinkable.

He killed her, said prosecutor Elana Smith.

“If I can’t have her, no one can have her,” Vue told detectives during an interview after his arrest, which was played for jurors.

Vue is on trial for first degree murder in the heinous killing of Xia Vang, who he stabbed 101 times after an argument in their northeast Fresno home on March 8, 2016.

Vue has admitted to the killing. His attorney Phillip Billington hopes to convince jurors to consider a lesser charge if he can show his client was driven to kill by an overwhelming feeling of betrayal.

His wife Vang allegedly had an affair with an older, married man, who family members said promised her a home and an education, based on witness testimony from the trial. She dreamed of being of a social worker or nurse, but by the time she graduated from high school in 2012, she already had two children and a third on the way.

Under cross-examination, Smith pressed defendant Vue on his repeated attempts to prevent his estranged wife from getting a divorce. That included family meetings, physical violence, and threats of suicide by him.

During one incident, about three months before Vang was killed, an angry Vue slapped her in the face twice because he believed she was spending time with her boyfriend.

And then just a week before her killing, Smith said Vue forced his wife into his car and drove her to the Tollhouse area where he intended to drive off a cliff and kill both of them.

He admitted under cross examination he couldn’t do it, but acknowledged that a short time later he had threatened to kill her and light himself on fire while they were still in the foothills.

“Xia pleaded with you not to kill her and to think about the children, didn’t she?” Smith asked him.

Vue said yes.

Prosecutor Smith also went over the chilling details of the killing, including how the couple’s 3-year-old son witnessed the fatal stabbing. At one point, the boy asked Vue why he and his mother Vang were covered with so much blood.

During his interview with detectives, Vue calmly described how his wife was scared and screaming as he held her down and stabbed her repeatedly with a kitchen knife.

“How long did it take for you to stab Xia as many times as you did?” Smith asked.

Vue replied, “At the time, I did not count how many times, I don’t know how long it took.”

Vue testified Wednesday that he unsuccessfully tried twice to end his life after the killing, including slashing his throat and hanging himself.

If convicted, Vue faces up to 26-years-to-life in prison. The trial is expected to wrap up Friday.