Linda Trinh would have turned 23 this month, the baby of her family with a Johns Hopkins University degree, heading off to medical school, perhaps, or already part way through.
Instead, Trinh happened to be at home in her Charles Village apartment the January 2005 evening that Donta Allen broke in. On Tuesday morning, as more than a dozen of Trinh?s family members and friends looked on, Allen pleaded guilty to her murder.
“He?s racked with guilt,” defense attorney Warren Brown said, calling Trinh?s death “unintended.” In an agreement negotiated with the state, Allen will be sentenced to life in prison and will be eligible for parole in about 12 years.
“He didn?t have to actually kill her,” said My Trinh, Linda?s cousin. She said after the hearing in Baltimore City Circuit Court that she was “very, very happy” with Allen?s guilty plea, even though, she said, “he didn?t look like he was sorry.”
With a thin beard lining his jaw, Allen, 28, looked off to the side as prosecutor Matthew Fraling detailed the murder: Trinh was home alone when Allen ? who dated a girl on a different floor and had burglarized Trinh?s apartment previously ? broke in. A fight ensued after Trinh tried to call the police on a cell phone, Fraling said.
Trinh was found the next day lying facedown in the bathtub, in 2 inches of water, with the cell phone. She wore a bra and a T-shirt. She had been strangled; detectives linked Allen to DNA found under Trinh?s fingernails.
My Trinh said everyone in their extended family was proud of Linda, a “really quiet” but ambitious woman who “had such a bright future.”
Brown said in a hearing Monday that prosecutors? initial plan to pursue life without parole was partly driven by the prominence of Hopkins and the media attention ? not due to anything “starkly different” about Trinh?s murder.
Fraling didnot return calls Tuesday seeking comment on his agreement to a lesser sentence.
