Gambler Gets Life Sentence for Murdering Wife

A man from Reno took drastic steps against his nagging wife… he murdered her in cold blood. Samuel Kung snapped after his wife called him a ‘coward’ after racking up a gambling debt so huge that she simply grew tired of bailing him out all the time. On June 9th, 2010, Kung walked into the Reno police department and asked to speak to a detective. “I murdered my wife,” he told the detective. “I’ve done something bad and I need to be punished.”

The 55 year old old Kung pleaded guilty to strangling his wife, Gina Lew in their bedroom, after she blamed him for gambling away their life savings.  According to family members, Lew had worked two jobs for many years in order to settle her husband’s gambling debts.  She also came home after a full day’s wife to continue to cook and clean for him.   But, it was discovered, Lew was so embarrassed by her husband’s gambling addiction that she kept it hidden from her family and led them to believe that she was the one with the problem.  At one stage, she was forced to quit one of her jobs as a restaurant waitress in order to cash in her pension funds to settle one of her husband’s gambling debts.

Kung gambled away his money, as well as money borrowed from his elderly parents-in-law on high stakes poker games. He would rely on payday loans and other lines of credit in order to fund his habit when his wife’s salary wasn’t enough to cover it.

But after Lew discovered that Kung had gambled away their life savings as well, she lashed out at him, calling him a coward. Kung then went on to murder her.

A court sentenced him to life in prison, although he will be eligible for parole in only a decade.   In a statement after his sentencing, Kung said: “There is nothing I can do to bring her back, and the wound and hurt will never heal. I hope my sentence gives Gina’s family some relief.”