Misplaced Trust Leads To Tragedy

In Shaker Heights, Ohio, just outside Cleveland, Ching L. Chang found a culturally rich and diverse neighborhood where he and his wife, Yoon Wah, could raise their four children.

Penny, 15, was the youngest in the family. Growing up, her family says she was very neat, very talkative and very Americanized. She thrived in this affluent suburb, but no one could have predicted what happened. 

Mike Tobin, a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, says the problems began for the Chang family in 1998, when Penny had a summer job working alongside Scott Strothers, the best friend of her brother, Sean.

Strothers, 21, practically grew up at the Chang house and later went on to become Sean’s college roommate. Which is why no one was too concerned when he and Penny spent a lot of time together.

But the family didn’t realize how serious his feelings were. Strothers began a journal later that year that described his relationship with Penny.

“I think you see that in the journals where Penny, at least for the summer, was his life,” says Tobin. “In his journal, you’d see him talking about this girl, this wonderful thing and the object of his affection.”

There was only one problem. Penny didn’t feel the same way.
Penny viewed him as just her older brother’s friend who she had hit it off and was friends with. This wasn’t the love of her life by any stretch of the imagination.

When the summer ended, and Penny began ignoring Strothers, the Chang family phone began ringing off the hook. The family claims he called 100 times a day and that they had to disconnect the phone.  But things got worse.