Utah murder victim's father testifies about losing daughter

SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- The father of a girl, 7, murdered in 2008, cried as he testified Wednesday in a Salt Lake City court in the trial of her suspected killer.

Cartoon Wah, a refugee from Burma, told the jury he had lost many things in life but none compare to the loss of Hser Ner Moo, his daughter. Speaking through an interpreter translating from his native Karen, Wah said, "She was my only daughter. Everybody loved her. Now I have to carry on living with this broken heart," the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Esar Met, 27, also a Burmese refugee but from a different ethnic group from Wah, is charged with felony counts of child kidnapping and aggravated murder in the girl's death. Prosecutors say Met, a neighbor of the Wah family in the same Salt Lake City apartment complex, abducted the child and sexually and physically assaulted her in his basement apartment before killing her.

Defense attorneys said in opening statements Tuesday there were no witnesses to the alleged abduction, and DNA evidence from Met's clothing, found under the child's fingernails, were remnants of games the two played several days before.