RIP FOR RX: Like practically everyone else in town, it seems, I, too, have been a patient of Dr. Henry Han, the much acclaimed Chinese herbalist gunned down in his home with his wife and daughter two weeks ago. I visited Han at his clinic about eight years ago when I was dealing with cancer. My mojo needed a serious infusion of juju to help me deal with the blitzkrieg of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Maybe Han could help. I wish I remembered him better. As is often the case with murder victims, Han has achieved an exalted status few enjoy while still breathing. There were so many chemicals at the time, I can only vaguely recall him. What I do remember is a quiet, kind, competent guy asking a lot of questions, intent on trying to help. In my case, Han prescribed herbal teas so nasty and stinky they’d have chased the devil out of hell. In hindsight, it’s impossible to say what effect these actually had; they certainly didn’t hurt.
Little wonder then that I would get caught up in the secondhand smoke surrounding the murder of Henry Han and his family. As with many unsolved cases, the investigation has triggered an outpouring of collective recollections from Han’s community of patients and friends. Inevitably, these are fragmentary, kaleidoscopic, and jumbled. Onto this, we insist on imposing the order of a story line to explain what may never be understood. It is our nature. What’s struck me so far are the large number of red herrings swimming around the Han family murder, loud, rich, and gaudy characters and subplots. Inevitably, many will prove utterly incidental to the murders themselves but remain morbidly compelling nonetheless. Some might actually break the case wide open. We’ll know when we know.
First there’s the family of accused murderer Pierre Haobsh: loud, enigmatic ciphers in their own right. Haobsh’s father, Fred, we are told, was a Jordanian-born CIA asset, one of the many agents and murky middle-men who in the late 1980s helped the United States sell arms to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein under the table. Then-president Ronald Reagan, out to punish Iran, had quietly erased Iraq’s name from the do-not-sell list. Fred Haobsh has since been linked to what appears to be a phantom company, Cal Tech International, that’s posted several different Texas addresses over the years. Well after Fred’s wife, Nancy, died of cancer, Fred was listing her as the company’s CFO. Pierre, likewise, had been designated a corporate officer, though it remains a mystery what this 27-year-old has ever done except attend acting classes while living in Dallas. We don’t know how the family fared financially except that Pierre’s older sister, Nadine — a pioneering beauty blogger and self-described professional “oversharer” — graduated from Carpinteria’s Cate School in 1998, then from Barnard College, and then got married at the Montecito Country Club. These all suggest money.