John Haley said he has asked his wife to collect newspaper clippings of how he shoved the fisherman into the water so that their 15-month-old boy can learn from his mistakes. (Sun-Times File)
‘I am at fault for Mr. Doan’s death’
By Rummana Hussain | Chicago Sun-Times
Although there’s an empty chair at the Doans’ dinner table every night, a full plate of food is always placed at an altar overflowing with bouquets, candles and a picture of the family’s deceased patriarch, Du Doan.
The ritual, Doan’s daughter Thao said, is performed so she and her relatives will never “forget.”
Thao Doan, however, is also haunted by another reminder: the “cold, dark, devilish” eyes and callousness of the heavily-tattooed man who pushed her 62-year-old father into Lake Michigan as a drunken prank.
That man — John Haley — finally apologized Friday for the Vietnamese immigrant’s drowning death before he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
“I am at fault for Mr. Doan’s death and no one else. I take full responsibility for that,” Haley said of the Sept. 1, 2007, sneak attack at Montrose Harbor.
Haley, 33, said he has asked his wife to collect newspaper clippings of how he shoved the fisherman into the water so that their 15-month-old boy can learn from his mistakes.
“Even though it will be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do, I will show all of this to my son when he gets older in hopes he won’t follow the wrong path,” Haley said. “A son should see his daddy as his hero, and I’m going to have to give that up.”
Haley, whom his own lawyer referred to as a drunken “jagoff” and “pea brain” when he was convicted in October, said he stopped drinking alcohol the day he learned Doan died. Jurors acquitted Haley of first-degree murder.
Involuntary manslaughter carries a sentence ranging from probation to five years in prison, but Cook County Judge John P. Kirby was allowed to extend Haley’s sentence because of his previous felony drug conviction.
Kirby also sentenced Haley on Friday to three years in prison on an aggravated battery charge related to a similar attack against another fisherman, Ronald Squires, who survived his fall into Lake Michigan. That three-year sentence will run concurrently with the longer sentence.
“What John Haley did to Mr. Doan and Mr. Squires was the height, the epitome of being a coward,” the judge said.
Earlier, Doan’s family talked about the pain of losing a man who suffered a mountain of hardships, including two layoffs, from his jobs as a janitor and a factory worker. Doan served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and had discovered fishing as a hobby, they said.
“This murderer will still see his family. We can only see a tombstone. This murderer will live out his aspirations. Not my father,” Thao Doan said, tears in her eyes.
In a statement, Kevin Doan said that while his father miraculously survived the Communists, bombs, and bullets, “a young man full of arrogance and remorselessness took his life with a simple heartless push.”
Haley’s school teacher mother, Anna Marie Haley, tearfully told the judge how, at the age of 10, her son had found his alcoholic father dead. The death deeply affected Haley and contributed to his troubled life as an adult, she said.
“I wish there was some way to turn back the clock and erase what happened,” a distraught Anna Marie Haley said.
After the sentencing, Anna Marie Haley grabbed Thao Doan’s hand and repeatedly said, “I’m sorry.”
Thao Doan welcomed the gesture and nodded with acknowledgement, evidence that the young woman was raised, as she had said, believing in “second chances.”
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