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Chu Vue was picked up in Elk Grove in the Oct. 15 slaying of correctional officer Steve Lo.
Lee Vue, brother of Lang Vue, faces accessory charges in the slaying.
Chong Vue also is jailed in Minnesota in connection with a drive-by killing.
Mason Vue, brother of Lang and Lee, also faces accessory charges.
The alleged criminal operation involved everything from fictitious names to surveillance missions to a safe house two hours outside of town.
So sophisticated was the conspiracy to murder correctional officer Steve Lo, authorities say, that it took five months, six agencies and dozens from the Sacramento Police Department alone to solve the mystery.
"(The murder) was very well planned," said homicide Sgt. Kirk Campbell. "There was a lot of work that went into this."
Ultimately, police found themselves back where the trail first got hot the day Lo was gunned down in his garage: at the home of former Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Chu Vue.
Police arrested Vue, 44, near his Elk Grove residence Thursday morning on suspicion of murder. Authorities say he was the mastermind of a plot to kill Lo – who was having an affair with Vue's wife – that involved Vue's younger brothers, Chong and Gary Vue, and a friend, Lang Vue.
All four men are scheduled to be arraigned Monday on murder charges.
The District Attorney's Office added a special circumstance to each charge, alleging that the defendants murdered Lo while lying in wait. If they are convicted, they could face the death penalty.
Sacramento prosecutors had not decided as of Thursday whether to seek that penalty.
Also arrested were Chu Vue's sister, Allyssa Vue, friend Khou Vue and Lang Vue's brothers, Mason and Lee Vue. The four are suspected of harboring the younger Vue brothers despite knowing they were wanted in Minnesota on unrelated murder charges. They are set to be arraigned Monday on accessory charges.
Chu Vue's attorney, Tom Johnson, said his client maintains his innocence.
"The law allows for theories but ultimately demands evidence," Johnson said.
From their Elk Grove home, Chu Vue's daughters said the family declined comment.
In interviews and documents filed in court, police and prosecutors began telling the tale Thursday of how a scorned husband allegedly orchestrated the slaying of his wife's lover.
Prosecutors filed documents that suggested Chu Vue and his co-defendants engaged in nearly a monthlong effort to case Lo's south Sacramento neighborhood before the correctional officer was gunned down in his garage.
Lo, a 39-year-old husband and father of five, was in full uniform as he prepared for his shift at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, where he worked with Chu Vue's wife, Chia.
According to the district attorney's "cover sheet" supporting the murder charges, a truck apparently belonging to the former deputy was caught on a surveillance videotape driving past Lo's Tambor Way residence twice in the 24 days before he was killed.
The DA's records said the camera that took the video was positioned two houses down from Lo's home.
On both occasions, a vehicle that appears to be Vue's 1999 Toyota Tacoma drives by Lo's house about the same time phone records showed Vue's cell phone "pinging" off a tower within 1,000 feet of the home, according to the cover sheet.
"The phone associated with Chu Vue makes several tower pings by the victim's residence and his vehicle is caught on video making drive-bys of the victim's residence," the cover sheet said.
The document said that cell phones linked to Chong Vue pinged off the same tower near Lo's house 31 times in the month before the shooting. Six of those calls were made to Chu Vue's cell phone number, according to the document.
Sacramento police say those cell phones were obtained under fictitious names and used to create a prepaid communication network between the defendants and other associates.
Records from those cell phones provided a substantial portion of the detectives' case, according to the DA's 29-page cover sheet. Those records helped detectives track the defendants from their alleged casing of Lo's house to other locations, such as a house in Tehama County that Chu Vue allegedly set up for his brothers in April 2007.
That house was kept under the name of defendant Khou Vue, 32, police said.
credit: Sacbee
In my opinion, I just can't believe that Hmong people are turning out to be like this. It puts innocent Hmong people into shame. I am Hmong and I believe that we shouldn't be this low to be acting this way.
