Inset: Rena Nguyen (The Salt Lake Tribune). Background: Caleb Rees during his sentencing hearing following his manslaughter conviction in Nguyen’s suicide (KTVX).
A Utah man is facing the possibility of 20 years in prison after prosecutors said his actions contributed to the death of his 20-year-old girlfriend, whom he berated before leaving a firearm within reach that she then used to take her own life.
Caleb Rees, 31, admitted guilt to manslaughter, two firearms offenses and a drug charge in connection with the death of Rena Nguyen in Orem. At sentencing on Friday, he received terms of up to five years on each count, exposing him to a maximum of 20 years behind bars.
Nguyen, a biology student at Brigham Young University, had been in a relationship with Rees for roughly 10 months before she died on Oct. 1, 2021. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, the manslaughter charge did not come until three years later, after a private investigator hired by Nguyen’s family discovered phone recordings from the night of her suicide.
Those recordings reportedly documented Rees confronting Nguyen about her suicidal thoughts. The confrontation escalated after he apparently believed she had contacted police to share her concerns.
“When I say get the f— off the phone with the police, I mean get the f— off the phone,” Rees said, according to the Tribune.
Authorities later learned it was not Nguyen who had called police, but a friend requesting a welfare check. Still, Rees continued to lash out, calling Nguyen dumb and stupid and saying she belonged in a “mental institution.”
Nguyen pleaded with him to “stop, please!” — words that would become her last. Rees then placed a gun on a table in front of her and left the room. Moments later, Nguyen fired the weapon.
Judge Sean M. Petersen laid into Rees, calling the recording “nothing short of horrific.”
“The repeated threats, demeaning statements, and the ridicule, Mr. Rees, that you heaped upon Rena is just unnerving. To treat someone this way, whom you had a close relationship with, gives me a lot of pause about your future relationships and the safety of the public,” he said, according to a courtroom report from local ABC affiliate KTVX.
Nguyen hoped to one day become a radiologist, her mother Rose Nguyen told the court.
“We stand before you today carrying a pain no parent should ever endure,” she said. “We are Keith and Rose Nguyen, and our daughter Rena Nguyen should still be alive. Rena should be building her future; instead, we are here to speak for Rena.”
Added the victim’s father: “No parent should ever have to bury their child, especially under such cruelty.”
The Nguyen family sued the Orem police for negligence, alleging the department did not do enough to address her previous complaints against Rees. But that lawsuit was dismissed, which led to the family hiring the private investigator who found the damning recordings, the Tribune reported.
Rees apologized to the Nguyen family, saying he could have handled “things differently.”
“I know I will never be able to feel the pain that the Nguyen family has gone through, but I want them to know that every day since Rena’s death has been extremely difficult, and not just the last two years I’ve been incarcerated, but every day leading up to then and after,” he told the judge.
