More Local

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
• Former Marine to serve two years in jail for killing Albuquerque robber
• Wilson-Pearce battle for U.S. Senate exemplifies party's disparity

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

As Albuquerque police detectives scrutinized tips phoned in after the homicide of an elderly couple in their Northeast Heights home, neighbors there remained vigilant, if not downright scared.

On Tuesday, Tak Yi, 79, and his wife, Pung Yi, 69, were found with massive head trauma dead in their home at Avenida La Costa and Louisiana Boulevard Northeast. The door had not been forced open and the home had not been ransacked, police say.

But few residents in the neighborhood answered their doors Thursday afternoon.

Young mothers rushed from their parked cars into their homes, looking over their shoulders because, said one mother who didn't want to give her name, she didn't want to be caught off guard.

Another neighbor, who also did not want to give his name, said while he, in his 60s, wasn't scared, his wife, in her 50s, spent Wednesday night on edge and anxious in their home in the middle of the 6700 block of Welton Drive Northeast.

The man spent Thursday raking leaves in his front yard, occasionally looking up and down the street about a block away from where the Yis were killed.

"We tend to think that this is a very safe neighborhood, but every once in a while we get a car stolen and we all come back to reality," the man, a retired Vietnam War veteran, said.

The reality the neighborhood was brought to Tuesday was bloody, seemingly random and senseless.

Albuquerque police say they are looking into the possibility that a man who'd been seen in the neighborhood earlier Tuesday might have had contact with the Yis, made his way into their home and killed them.

The Vietnam veteran neighbor said the man in question had stopped by his house about 1 p.m. Tuesday, rang his doorbell and then quickly moved on to his neighbor's home.

There, the veteran said, the man, who seemed to be about a junior or senior in high school, talked to the elderly woman who lives at the home as she cracked the door a few inches.

The veteran said he heard the man say something about needing money for a high school project.

Police say the man in question also tried to get a family on that street to let him into their home.

That behavior in such proximity and time frame to the Yi homicides makes detectives want to talk to the man.

For now, they are calling the nameless man a person of interest and asking the community for help in identifying him. They released a sketch to the public Wednesday and since then have been averaging about seven tips an hour, police spokesman John Walsh said.

None of them had led to anything substantial as of Thursday afternoon, Walsh said.

Neither had the autopsies performed on the couple. Walsh said homicide detectives had received preliminary information, but none of it would be made public until further into the investigation.

Meanwhile, the Korean community, of which the Yis were prominent members, spent Thursday mourning their loss.

A memorial featuring the Yis' 45th wedding anniversary picture and a picture of them from a recent cruise were set amid flowers and candles in the main room at the Korean Community Center at Menaul and Eubank boulevards Northeast.

The Yis' four children have requested no pictures be made public of them because "they are a very private family," said family friend Yon Pratt.

Family friends and members of the Korean senior group that meet every Wednesday night for karaoke recalled how smart both of the Yis were.

Tak Yi, who spent 15 years with the state Department of Transportation, could read in three languages.

Pung Yi loved to sing karaoke and was involved in the community center and her church.

"They were a very nice couple, most everyone (in the Korean community) knew them," said family friend Lisa Harlow after placing flowers on the memorial table.

"I've known her for 20 years. She would never hurt anybody. This is just terrible," Harlow said.

It was a common refrain at the center Thursday as acquaintances and close friends recalled how the couple would have gladly offered help to anyone who approached their well-kept home for it.

"She was also a breast cancer survivor, so for that, and then to happen this way is disgusting," said Pratt. "She loved life."