His wife was having an affair with his friend, so he killed them both. Was it murder?

For more than 30 years, Rattana Chounramany and Leuth Sengsongkham were a loving couple, holding hands on dates and working hard together in the fields south of Fresno to provide for their seven children.

After a long day in the fields, Chounramany would cook dinner, serve her husband a plate of food, and clean up after him, according their children.

Then one day in the winter of 2014, Chounramany told her husband she wanted out of the marriage and that she was having an affair with Somkeo Thongkhamvilay, a friend of theirs who worked in the fields with them.

Six months later, Sengsongkham, then 59, took a gun to the fields with him. He then fatally shot his 47-year-old wife and her 58-year-old lover and left their bodies in the dirt.

On Tuesday, in opening statements of Sengsongkham’s murder trial in Fresno County Superior Court, prosecutor William Lacy and defense attorney Roberto Dulce agreed that Sengsongkham killed his wife and their friend in April 2015. What’s in dispute is whether his actions constituted murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter.

If convicted of murder, Sengsongkham, now 62, faces life in prison. A voluntary manslaughter conviction carries a penalty of up to 11 years in prison, according to the California Penal Code. Using a gun in the killing could add up to 10 years to the prison sentence.

The killings happened during the morning of April 18, 2015, at a farm near Chestnut and Adams avenues, west of Highway 99 and the city of Fowler. Thongkhamvilay was shot six times and Chounramany was shot twice, Lacy said.

The couple’s relatives and children, along with a farm worker, found the bodies that evening after Sengsongkham drove to his daughter’s home near Las Vegas and told her what he had done, Lacy said. The daughter then took her father to the Henderson Police Department, where he surrendered.

Dulce told the jury that Sengsongkham was emotionally devastated when his wife told him she was having an affair with their friend, who was known as Keo. He wanted to reconcile with her, but she didn’t want to get back together, he said. “He just lost it,” Dulce said of his client’s mental state when he fired the fatal shots.

Lacy, however, described a man who stewed over the breakup and planned the killings. He said when Sengsongkham grabbed his gun from his home it was the first time he took it to work in the fields. “He was jealous,” Lacy said, telling the jurors that the couple had been sleeping in separate beds for months.

Sengsongkham came to the United States from Laos in 1982. He met his wife a year later. Together, they carved a life in Fresno, raising seven children who went to college and got good paying jobs, Dulce told the jury.

Some of their children will testify in the trial on their father’s behalf. Some will testify about how their father loved their mother and never had a physical fight, but sometimes arguments. Other children will testify about how they saw their mother start showing attention to Thongkhamvilay, while telling her husband to get his own plate of food, Dulce said.

On the day of the killings, Sengsongkham and his wife went to Thongkhamvilay’s home to pick him up for work. They then went to the fields in two vehicles to tend Chinese eggplant, bitter melon and other Asian vegetables.

Five minutes after arriving, Sengsongkham told his wife that he wanted to get back together, Lacy said. When she said no, he shot Thongkhamvilay first, then his wife, the prosecutor said.

After he turned himself in to Henderson police, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office dispatched detectives to talk with Sengsongkham. In his vehicle, detectives found the gun used in the slayings; his wife’s blood was discovered on his shoes, Lacy said.

Lacy said Sengsongkham committed murder because he had been mad at his wife and their friend for a long time. “There’s no sex and they don’t sleep together,” Lacy told the jury. According to Lacy, Sengsongkham told detectives that he considered divorcing his wife. He also told detectives that he contemplated killing her and then killing himself, Lacy said.

But once she said she didn’t want to get back together, “he shoots them,” Lacy said.

Dulce said the affair crushed him emotionally.

“He’s hurt very badly,” Dulce said. “Undoubtedly, he’s upset, he jealous. He told his daughter he just lost it.”

This story was originally published August 15, 2017 at 4:32 PM with the headline "His wife was having an affair with his friend, so he killed them both. Was it murder?."