Man and woman identified as suspect and victim in murder-suicide at UCI were relatives who shared a home

Authorities have identified a man in his 30s and a woman in her 70s as the two who died in what police were investigating as a murder-suicide at UC Irvine on Tuesday.

Andrew Nguyen Doan, 36, was described as a suspect in the case, Orange County Sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Steinle said. The victim was 77-year-old Thao Thi Nguyen.

They were found deceased along the 200 block of Pereira Drive, between the campus’ social sciences buildings, at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. No weapon was found at the scene, and authorities had not publicly confirmed their causes of death as of Wednesday afternoon, Irvine Police Sgt. Karie Davies said.

The man and woman were blood relatives and shared a home in Irvine, Davies said. Police had been summoned to their residence on numerous occasions in the past, and Doan was known to police. Authorities did not go into detail about the nature of those prior calls for service.

Doan had been a student at UCI, Davies said. He was a biology student at the university between 2017 and 2019, UCI spokesman Tom Vasich said. He did not graduate.

“May your soul rest in peace,” read a note written on an origami crane left near where Doan and Nguyen died. A message of condolence was written on the back of a framed picture of an angel found on a bench a few feet away.

“May your soul rest in peace,” reads a note on an origami crane left outside of the Social Sciences buildings at UCI, near where a man and woman were found dead Tuesday. Police were investigating their deaths as a possible murder-suicide.

(Eric Licas)

Natalia Sanchez works at UCI and was in a meeting nearby at the time of the alleged murder-suicide. She saw five or six Irvine police vehicles lining the area around the social sciences plaza when she walked outside and said she “knew something big had happened.”

She and business student Wen Jie said there would have been few people in the area Tuesday afternoon because campus is out of session for winter break. There had been no report of any sort of altercation immediately preceding Nguyen and Doan’s deaths, Davies said.

“We are still gathering information about who the victims are and exactly what happened, but law enforcement has informed us that there is no ongoing danger to our community,” UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman wrote in a bulletin to students and faculty Tuesday. “At such a time, our primary thoughts are with the victims and their families,” he added.

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.