A non-binary murder suspect was carried into an Ohio courtroom by police, with their pants pulled down, to face charges in the fatal shootings of their professor father and stepmother.

Asia Nguyen-Duy, 31, of Ashland, Oregon, appeared in court Friday with their jail-issued pants around their legs and underwear exposed as four officers carried the shoeless suspect into the Oberlin courtroom.

The officers appeared to struggle as they carried Nguyen-Duy, who refused to walk and has asked to be addressed using they/them pronouns.

The letters “EBK” had also been written backward across Nguyen-Duy’s forehead. The acronym can sometimes stand for “Everybody Killa,” a gang term meaning everyone has been killed, although it was not clear what Nguyen-Duy intended the letters to mean.

Nguyen-Duy faces six counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault and one count of tampering with evidence. The charges were filed after their father, Pipo Nguyen-Duy, and Pipo’s wife, Thi Tran Phong, were found dead inside their home.

In court, the suspect also appeared to pretend to cry before directing a menacing smile toward cameras in the courtroom.

Bond was set at $3 million, and Nguyen-Duy remained in custody.

Nguyen-Duy, who previously used the name Daniel Jones, was arrested Wednesday after the 64-year-old Oberlin College professor was found dead on the first floor of his home. His 56-year-old wife was discovered in a bedroom, Cleveland 19 reported.

Police were alerted to a vehicle fire in the Oberlin College Conservatory parking lot shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday, leading officers to the couple.

The silver Toyota hatchback, which police said belonged to Nguyen-Duy, had boarded-up windows, a wood-burning stove in the back seat and a makeshift chimney extending through the roof. Investigators also found a wallet, passport, suitcase, keys, loose ammunition and packaging for a Glock inside the vehicle.

Police have not recovered the gun.

About 80 minutes later, Nguyen-Duy was found near the 200 block of Shipherd Circle and was subsequently booked into the Lorain County Jail.

At approximately 10:30 a.m., Oberlin police forced entry into Pipo’s home and found the couple dead. Both victims had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, authorities said.

Greg Porson, a neighbor of the couple, told News 5 Cleveland that he was walking his dog when someone he believed to be Nguyen-Duy emerged from a vehicle. He described the person as “really disheveled,” “wet” and “uneasy.”

The suspect allegedly asked Porson for a ride to the library, saying they needed to “escape this cult.” Nguyen-Duy also allegedly asked Porson to record a video of them.

“I said: ‘You know, I never get into anything like that, so I’m out of here,’” Porson told the outlet.

Prosecutors told the judge on Friday that a video does exist of Nguyen-Duy allegedly confessing to the killings. 

‘He says he’s escaping a cult. He also says everything I did was on my own accord, and I take full responsibility,’ the prosecutor said, according to Cleveland 19. 

When he was found by police, Nguyen-Duy was allegedly covered in blood and scratches, prosecutors said.  

Prosecutors also said Nguyen-Duy’s mother, who lives in Oregon, said the suspect was psychotic and needed medication, Cleveland 19 reported. 

Nguyen-Duy’s motive is not immediately known.  

Pipo had been teaching at Oberlin College, which is near Cleveland, since 1998. He taught visual art.  

The school honored the professor, saying in a social media statement: ‘Pipo was a cherished teacher, artist, and colleague whose work and mentorship touched many lives at Oberlin. In the conversations, experiences, and memories shared during these past couple of days, one sentiment echoes throughout: he was beloved.’ 

The school will be hosting a gathering to honor the couple. 

Pipo immigrated to the US at the age of 13 from Vietnam as a political refugee, his Oberlin College biography said.  

Pipo used to compete in national table tennis tournaments while living in the Asian country. He also briefly practiced as a Buddhist monk in India before returning to the US to attend Carleton College in Minnesota. 

Pipo also lived in New York City, where he worked as a bartender and nightclub manager, before getting a Masters of Fine Art from the University of New Mexico, his biography said. 

He also received a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for photography in 2011. The Guggenheim Foundation mourned the photographer, it said in a social media statement. 

Nguyen-Duy’s lawyer, Jenifer Berki Merrill, said the suspect now goes by their birth name.  

The Daily Mail has reached out to the family and Nguyen-Duy’s lawyer for comment.  

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Democrat whose academic work has drawn scrutiny over its discussion of marriage across ethnic lines, has handled what Mayor Zohran Mamdani described as racist attacks against him “admirably,” Mamdani said this week.

The socialist New York mayor praised El-Sayed’s approach to his closely watched Senate campaign against former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan. Mamdani’s comments came just hours before El-Sayed publicly clashed with Rep. Haley Stevens, his leading Democratic primary opponent, in the campaign’s final stretch.

“A race of that magnitude is difficult enough as it is; to have to contend with blatantly racist attacks on a regular basis, and the silence of so many around him in the face of that — that is immensely difficult,” Mamdani told WNYC on Thursday. “And I have had to experience a version of it in our own mayoral race.”

Mamdani said candidates facing such attacks must depend on their allies while trying to keep the campaign focused on their preferred terms. “When we are speaking about millions of dollars being spent trafficking in that same racism, it becomes incredibly difficult to both respond to it and continue to move forward,” he said, adding that El-Sayed was meeting the challenge “admirably.”

President Trump and Rogers have focused their criticism of El-Sayed on an alleged family connection to the Muslim Brotherhood rather than explicitly framing it around race. Trump has called El-Sayed a “jihadist,” while Vice President JD Vance has referred to him as a “psychopath.”

During his time at Columbia Medical School, El-Sayed — who has repeatedly described himself as a physician despite not completing a medical residency — co-authored a paper examining health outcomes among Arab women in relationships with partners from different ethnic backgrounds.

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The 2011 study, published in the “Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health,” discussed the potential risks of what it called “interethnic mating,” including an increased likelihood of premature birth.

The paper was among several works by El-Sayed that critics have characterized as heavily focused on race and religion.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, criticized the research on X, describing it as “science” with “a pre-ordained racist & eugenics outcome” and calling it “scary stuff.”

Mamdani was also asked about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s support for El-Sayed, who is campaigning on Medicare for All and has called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Mamdani and El-Sayed have both been linked politically to socialist activist Linda Sarsour, a prominent critic of Israel.

Ocasio-Cortez has said a Democratic victory in Michigan would demonstrate that “anyone can win anywhere.” However, Mamdani declined to say whether he would like to see the New York congresswoman pursue a presidential campaign.

The member of the House’s “Squad” is highlighting her national fundraising operation in a new appeal scheduled for Saturday, while recent victories by socialist candidates could further raise her profile.

“I want to see AOC do whatever it is that AOC wants to do,” Mamdani said.

One collection of documents is locked inside a gun safe in Northern Virginia. A second is held in a safe-deposit box at a Washington, DC, bank, while a third has been hidden somewhere on the West Coast.

Together, the three caches contain evidence that frustrated Defense Department officials hope could help force Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from office after next week’s midterm elections.

Pentagon sources told the Daily Mail that they and their colleagues have spent much of the past 22 months gathering emails, memos and notes from meetings.

The records describe incidents in which Hegseth and members of his inner circle allegedly disregarded strategic and legal guidance, lashed out at the experts who provided it, withheld information from Congress and the public, and threatened the careers of subordinates who challenged their decisions or were viewed as too woke, overweight, queer or disloyal.

The officials believe the documentary record, along with a roster of potential witnesses inside the department, could prove valuable if Democrats regain control of the House in November and launch an expected impeachment inquiry in 2027.

‘We’re ready with the receipts,’ said a longtime Army officer who has stored a Trapper Keeper — once his daughter’s high school binder — inside a double-locked basement gun safe. He believes the documents could eventually help bring down his boss.

The officer is among several Defense Department insiders who described coordinated efforts to provide lawmakers with documentary evidence and firsthand accounts as they consider investigating and potentially impeaching Hegseth.

All of the sources requested anonymity, saying they feared for their jobs, military pensions and ability to continue building a case from within the Pentagon.

‘We’re sticking our necks out. You gotta protect us,’ one source pleaded.

The claims come as news emerged Wednesday that Hegseth had fired the Pentagon’s top military planner, Army Lt Gen Brett Sylvia.

Sylvia, who previously led strategy, plans and policy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was dismissed after reportedly leaking classified information about the war in Iran and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. His removal came as President Donald Trump weighs renewed strikes on Iran following next week’s midterm elections.

Since early 2025, the Daily Mail has maintained contact with a core group of military and civilian Pentagon insiders who, together with others inside the department, have sought in different ways to blow the whistle on Hegseth.

The former Fox & Friends host has renamed the federal government’s largest agency the ‘Department of War.’ His critics say he operates it as a personal fiefdom.

The sources initially raised concerns about the prominent role played by Hegseth’s wife, former Fox News producer Jennifer Hegseth.

After reports emerged that she had participated in encrypted Signal chats containing sensitive details about a March 2025 US strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen, insiders disclosed her Pentagon nickname: ‘Yoko Ono,’ a reference to what they described as her frequent presence at her husband’s business meetings.

By spring 2025, the insiders were criticizing Hegseth for issuing orders and shaping policy without fully considering — or even listening to — advice from intelligence, security, logistics and legal officials.

They described a department plagued by politicized decisions, dysfunction, low morale and an atmosphere of fear driven, they say, by Hegseth’s determination to eliminate dissent.

Several laid out their grievances in a 2025 letter that circulated among high- and mid-level brass and civilian workers, calling to ‘Let the American public know this guy has no clue what he’s doing,’ one of them told the Daily Mail.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell brushed it off as ‘palace intrigue’ and ‘sensationalized mainstream media gossip’ that Americans ‘don’t care about.’

‘They care about action,’ his statement read at the time.

The warnings grew more urgent as Hegseth kept firing top officials, including the Army secretary and chief of staff, the Joint Chiefs chairman, the Navy’s highest-ranking officer, the top commander of forces in Europe and Africa, the judge advocates general (JAGs) of three military branches and scores of civilian Pentagon staffers. 

They ramped up when dozens of extrajudicial strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and West Pacific began last fall. And they grew louder still in February, when the Trump administration attacked Iran without a declaration of war or specific legal authorization.

Hegseth claimed an early victory over Iran last winter and has touted that the US achieved ‘every single objective.’

But our sources say he ignored, and even concealed, a string of uncomfortable truths about the war: The military wasn’t ready before the attack, US sites across the Middle East were badly damaged, and stockpiles of key munitions ran low.

As recently as Friday, President Donald Trump threatened that the US ‘may do another little [Operation] Epic Fury’ against Iran soon.

All of our Pentagon insiders say Hegseth has been told again and again that continued war with Iran is unsustainable. 

Some see his new ‘doomsday plan,’ ordering every major US military base to prepare to run for at least 90 days without outside electricity, fuel, water or supplies, as his way of tackling the problem without the awkwardness of urging the president to drop his war plans.

‘Pete’s lucky to be here and he knows it. He’s never gonna say no to Trump,’ one said.

Two sources said they’ve taken part, directly or indirectly, in briefing members of Congress and their staffers on Hegseth’s rule over the military. 

The briefings have been decidedly low-tech and well away from Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, including, one source said, at a sandwich shop and a dog park.

Blowing the whistle on the boss is risky. 

Two sources described an agreement that unofficial meetings with lawmakers and interviews with reporters be handled by officials nearing retirement, not those with careers still ahead.

‘If heads roll, it should be (us) who already raised our families and put our kids through college,’ one said.

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Some lawmakers have tried to act.

Last December, Michigan Democratic Representative Shri Thanedar introduced two articles of impeachment. 

The first focused on the Caribbean boat strikes, which some Pentagon insiders told us amounted to war crimes. 

The second accused Hegseth of leaking classified war plans via Signal to people without security clearances: his wife in one group chat and The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in another.

In April, Arizona Democrat Representative Yassamin Ansari introduced six articles. Among her allegations: waging an unauthorized war in Iran, targeting civilians at a school there and obstructing congressional oversight.

Both efforts stalled in Republican-led committees.

Last month, outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie went further, reading eight articles of impeachment on the House floor, including the allegations lodged by the two Democrats. 

When he tried to force a vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home early, until after the midterms. The Kentucky Republican plans to try again the week of November 9.

A growing group of Republicans in both chambers are said to be losing confidence in Hegseth, but Massie’s resolution could still struggle to pass in a GOP-controlled House.

‘Trump should fire Hegseth to avoid Hegseth’s impeachment,’ Massie posted on X on October 15, the same day Trump overrode his war chief’s plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of the man convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. ‘It’s the honorable thing to do.’

As a rule, military and civilian Defense Department employees stay politically neutral on the job. 

But a longtime officer who says he ignored politics throughout a 30-plus-year career could no longer do so after Trump appointed Hegseth.

‘Democratic control can’t come soon enough,’ said the registered Republican, who hopes Democrats soon have the votes and subpoena power to open formal investigations.

House Democrats aren’t hiding their plans to drive Hegseth out. Candidates on the trail are blaming him for skyrocketing gas prices and an Iran war with no end in sight.

Rep Jared Huffman of California has called the secretary an ‘unhinged fanatic’ whose reign needs to end as soon as possible. 

Rep Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the oversight subcommittee on military and foreign affairs, has voiced support for investigating Hegseth in the new Congress. 

And Rep Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat, has said impeaching Hegseth should be among House Democrats’ top three priorities.

‘One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town,’ House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become Speaker in January, told voters in Pennsylvania earlier this month.

A House Armed Services Committee staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he’s in close contact with several Pentagon whistleblowers and knows about their efforts to supply evidence for a possible impeachment.

The House has impeached a war chief only once: in 1876, when Secretary of War William Belknap handed his resignation to President Ulysses Grant minutes before the vote. The Senate later acquitted him.

Even if Democrats have the simple majority to impeach Hegseth next term, the case would go to a Senate trial, where conviction takes a two-thirds supermajority.

‘It’s a longshot,’ the staffer acknowledged.

Short of a conviction, the insiders say they’d be just as pleased with other routes to Hegseth’s toppling. 

One would be Trump firing him, as he did Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem less than two months after impeachment articles were introduced against her. The other would be Hegseth resigning under sustained political pressure.

Hegseth has been rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid since a political appearance in Iowa in August, a report he has called ‘100% false.’ 

And in recent weeks he reportedly has been angling for Sen. Marsha Blackburn to appoint him to her Senate seat if she wins the Tennessee governor’s race in November, as expected. He lived briefly in the state before joining the cabinet.

A Pentagon insider who was once hopeful about the secretary lamented that Hegseth has ‘had a target on his back’ since his early-2025 confirmation process, when lawmakers from both parties grilled him about accusations of excessive drinking and a 2017 sex-assault allegation. He denied both. 

He squeaked through by the narrowest possible margin, a 50-50 vote broken by Vice President JD Vance.

‘They left… no room for the possibility that he changed his ways or that service members might embrace him,’ that source said of Hegseth’s critics.

He pointed to longtime snipes at the secretary’s outspoken anti-wokeness and Christian nationalism, views he noted are popular with much of the rank and file.

He called other criticisms, such as the makeup studio Hegseth installed inside the Pentagon, his staged weightlifting photo ops with troops, and his new grooming and shaving policy and testosterone testing for service members, ‘petty distractions, but not impeachable offenses’.

That insider wishes the criticism would focus less on culture-war issues and more on what he sees as war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Caribbean and Iran.

‘Let’s sweat the big stuff, not the small stuff,’ he said Friday.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama launched some of those smaller criticisms Saturday.

‘You’ve got the defense secretary… he’s very focused on important matters like the jawlines and testosterone levels of our troops,’ the former president told a campaign rally crowd in Ohio. 

‘How much time do you think this defense secretary spends looking at himself in the mirror in the morning?’

Responding to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on this story, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said: ‘At the War Department, we are solely focused on Peace Through Strength and ensuring our warfighters have everything they need to be successful. We are proud to serve our warriors’