Police: Driver in crash was shot
Thong Khousakoune left his Fresno home early Thursday to visit friends in Sacramento and told his wife over the phone that he would return after dinner, his wife said Friday.
Around 11 p.m., Sacramento police said, Khousakoune was seen at a gas station at Franklin Boulevard and 12th Avenue, apparently preparing to take nearby Highway 99 home.
He never reached the onramp. Instead, a police spokesman said Friday, within minutes of that sighting, Khousakoune’s red Honda CR-V plowed into the side of a home on 15th Avenue near Franklin Boulevard, with Khousakoune, fatally shot, still behind the wheel.
Police are now urging anyone who was in the area of the gas station at the time, or near the southbound Highway 99 entrance just blocks away, to come forward with any information that could aid the department’s homicide investigation, said Sacramento Police Department spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong.
“Something occurred during that time frame, in that short distance, where he was killed,” Leong said.
Reached by phone Friday, Khousakoune’s wife, 32-year-old Apple Khousakoune, said her husband “has no enemies, and I don’t know what he got shot for.” She said Khousakoune worked as an in-home caretaker in Fresno, and that the couple have a 4-year-old daughter.
“He’s a good person, he likes to help others,” Apple Khousakoune said. “I don’t know what to tell his daughter. My mind is going blank right now.”
Officers were originally called to a report of a vehicle crashing into a structure just after 11 p.m. Thursday. They found the Honda had hit a side wall of a home on 15th Avenue, damaging the wall and the front end of the vehicle, Leong said.
Khousakoune was found unresponsive in the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene, Leong said. Police originally ruled his death a traffic fatality.
However, traffic investigators later determined that Khousakoune’s injuries were not consistent with the damage to his vehicle, police reported. Further investigation of the injuries revealed that Khousakoune had suffered at least one gunshot wound to his upper body, Leong said.
Police have not said whether they believe Khousakoune was shot while driving or while out of the vehicle. Investigators do believe Khousakoune was alone in the vehicle when it hit the home, Leong said.
The wall that was struck faces Franklin Boulevard, but is separated from that street by a gated parking lot about 40 yards long. Damage evidently left by the vehicle indicated it had traveled over the sidewalk of Franklin Boulevard, across the parking lot, through two metal gates, and into the house.
Nobody in the home was injured, police said.
Khousakoune’s wife said her husband left home without telling her where he was going Thursday morning, and that when she reached him by phone, he said he was visiting friends in Sacramento.
When the couple talked around 8 p.m., she said, Khousakoune said he and two friends were about to eat dinner, and that he would head home afterward.
She asked him to pick her up at her mother’s house in Fresno and didn’t hear from him again, she said.
Investigators have not determined a motive for the killing, Leong said.
POLICE SEEK HELP
Anyone with information about the crime is urged to contact Crime Alert at (916) 443-HELP (4357), or text a tip to 274637 (CRIMES) by entering SACTIP followed by the tip information.
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