For more than five hours a stoic Brian Tzeo stood by as 500 to 600 family members and friends came to pay their last respects to his family.
Tzeo's wife, Lisa Phan, 40, and their children, Melanie Saephan, 20, Pauline Chao, 18, and Cody Tzeo, 4, lay in open caskets at Jenkins Funeral Home in Newton on Wednesday.
Cody was dressed in a bright blue sweatshirt with its hood pulled up and framing his face.
The four family members were murdered in their home in Conover on the morning of March 12. Authorities think drugs motivated the killings.
The suspect in the murders is Chiew Chan Saevang, 37. Authorities said he killed himself and his girlfriend, Yer Yang, 40, after sheriff's deputies spotted his BMW and gave chase late Tuesday on an interstate highway in Utah. The car crashed and caught fire and deputies who pulled them from the wreckage found them dead.
Tzeo and the family knew Saevang, which is why investigators think he walked right into the home on Gristmill Drive in the Bunker Hill area. They suspect Saevang had planned to steal opium or heroin from the home and kill the family.
A Buddhist monk, family friend Mike Mai Cai and several others prayed and chanted over the bodies as mourners in the pews wept.
Tzeo sat quietly near the front of the sanctuary and hugged family and friends who came by to lend their support.
A display board covered with candid photographs of the murdered family members in happier times stood beside the guest book and a box set up to collect donations to help cover funeral expenses.
SBI spokesman Dave Call has said Tzeo was involved in drug trafficking and that involvement led to the murders.
Asked if Tzeo would be arrested for drug crimes, Catawba County Sheriff David Huffman said simply, "He has four people to bury right now."
Call declined to comment on whether or not Tzeo will be allowed to go to El Sobrante, Calif., for his family's burial.
Several people who attended the visitation said they knew the victims as well as the man accused of killing them and the woman identified as the killer's girlfriend who died with him on the side of a Utah interstate Tuesday night.
"Chiew was a good person four or five years ago and then something happened to him and he changed," said Kao Saephan, a family friend.
Others agreed and said they couldn't believe it when they heard Saevang had been accused of the vicious crimes and how he met his own violent death.
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