CANADA Canada - Lien Pham "May-Ling, the China Barbie Doll'',39, strangled, Toronto (Etobicoke) 13 Oct 2003

[dotr]

HUNTER: Two Toronto cold case killings 'very solvable' | Toronto Sun
Oct 5 2021
''But there are two cold case murders on the list that detectives are certain they can solve — and maybe someday soon.

“The two for October that stick out to me are Lien Pham and Sharmini Anandavel, both are absolutely solvable,” Det.-Sgt. Stephen Smith, of the cold case squad, told the Toronto Sun.

Lien Pham was a 39-year-old widowed single mom and sex worker, who advertised herself as 23-year-old May-Ling, the “China Barbie Doll.” She supported herself, a teen son and her parents back in Vietnam with the money she made.''

''On Monday, Oct. 13, 2003, her partially clad body was discovered in the 18th-floor apartment at 24 Mabelle Ave. in Etobicoke that she and other sex workers used as an “in-call” spot to meet johns. She had been strangled to death.

According to Sun files, Pham had been left penniless by her husband’s death and turned to the sex business to make ends meet.

Another sex worker who worked out of the apartment told the Sun that on the day she was murdered that Pham told her she wanted to see two more clients. It would be a deadly decision.

“When I came back at 7:15 (the next morning), she was dead (on a bedroom floor),” the sex worker said.

“She was the most passionate person,” the woman said of the “motherly and loving” Pham. “She’d offer anybody the world.”

ETA This is the thread for the other case referenced in the same article..
CANADA - Canada - Sharmini Anandavel, 15, Toronto, remains located by Don River ravine, 12 June 1999

 

[Richard]

Lien Pham

Lien Pham, 39, was found dead inside a bedroom in an 18th-floor apartment at 24 Mabelle Ave., near Islington Avenue and Bloor Street, at 2:05 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2003.

Pham, a prostitute, was strangled to death, an autopsy revealed.

“The apartment was being used as an in-call location for prostitution,” Det. Sgt. Cory Bockus told reporters during a news conference a few days after the murder, according to the Etobicoke Guardian.

Pham was Toronto’s 42nd homicide victim of 2003.

LINK:

Unsolved Etobicoke homicides from the mid-2000s