popular fortune teller didn't foretell ritual murder

from san francisco gate

Police: White paint found on hands, face of slain fortuneteller

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

White paint was applied to the hands and faces of a Vietnamese fortuneteller and her daughter after the two were stabbed to death, police said Wednesday.

Police hoped new details about the slayings would provide them with leads in a case that has baffled detectives since the bodies of Ha Jade Smith, 52, and Anita Nhi Vo, 23, were found on April 21.

"We have exhausted what we feel are local leads are as far as the white paint and the significance of that," said Lt. Derek Marsh, spokesman for the Westminster Police Department.

"We would request an outreach to the Asian community ... and (ask) if anyone has any information in reference to the symbolic aspect of it — if there is any symbolic reference to it," he said.

Marsh said Smith was known nationally among Vietnamese-Americans as a skilled fortuneteller and had clients from as far away as New York. Clients often came to her home, he said.

Police believe the crime was motivated by robbery, however, and had no link to Smith's profession, he said.

Smith, known as Miss Ha in the local Vietnamese community, did card and palm readings from an office at a strip mall in Midway City. Her daughter was a student at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

Police said Smith was robbed and her house burglarized in separate incidents in 2001. Marsh said those crimes, which remain unsolved, do not appear related to the murders.