A California man convicted of killing a Santa Barbara County family, including its 5-year-old daughter, will serve life in prison, a judge ruled Friday. There is no chance for parole.
Dr. Henry Han, 57, his wife Jennie Yu, 29, and their daughter Emily were killed in their Goleta home in March 2016. Their bodies, wrapped in plastic sheeting, were found by sheriff’s deputies conducting a welfare check after a friend, worried Han had missed a meeting, asked law enforcement to investigate.
All three had been shot multiple times. Emily was a few days away from her sixth birthday.
“This was a diabolical, premeditated crime — one of the most odious that I have ever been involved with,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said at the time.
Clues quickly pointed to Pierre Haobsh, now 32, a bizarre figure in the Hans’ orbit. Haobsh, who described himself as an entrepreneur and “basically a billionaire,” was possibly trying to enter into a business relationship with Han, a popular Chinese herbalist. In text messages obtained by law enforcement, Haobsh bragged about having a Lamborghini and a private jet; in reality, he was living with his father in a modest apartment near San Diego. (To add to the oddity of Haobsh’s murky backstory, his father was reportedly a “Jordanian-born U.S. citizen hired by the CIA in the late 1980s and early ’90s to meet with Saddam Hussein’s weapons-procurement officers,” and his sister is a beauty blogger who appeared on the reality show “Newlyweds: The First Year.”)
The exact nature of Han and Haobsh’s business partnership is not clear, but Han, who maintained a patient list of 13,000 people, was reportedly working on cannabis products. Detectives said that during a search of the Han home, they found a Trader Joe’s bag containing a document for Obsidian Teradyne LLC, signed by both men the day before the Hans’ murder.
Investigators tracked down surveillance footage from a Home Depot in Oceanside, California, where they saw Haobsh purchasing the plastic sheeting and duct tape used at the crime scene. They also obtained a text message from Haobsh to an acquaintance that read, “Yep. Am screwed. They just found everything. My life’s over,” sent after police found the Hans’ bodies.
According to prosecutors, Haobsh was motivated by greed. Among his possessions was a screenshot of Han’s bank information, including his account and social security numbers. Investigators say Haobsh transferred $100,000 from that account into his after the murders.
Haobsh was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in November 2021. On Friday, a judge sentenced him to three consecutive life sentences, plus additional time for the special circumstance of committing murder for financial gain.
“He has no possibility of ever being released,” Supervising Deputy District Attorney Ben Ladinig told KEYT. “He will literally die in prison.”