Doug Hood

I found Daughter of Song to be a powerful book: compelling, informative, nuanced, culturally sensitive, and accessible. It focuses on the case of Panna Krom, a seventeen-year-old Connecticut high-school student who, early in 2007, was charged with the murder of her newborn daughter. She was subsequently sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Panna and her elder brother were born in Connecticut to Song and Chan Krom, Thai-Cambodian refugees who had fled the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, losing multiple family members under harrowing circumstances. The parents never spoke about those traumatic experiences with their children. They just got on with life.

Panna was an excellent student. This was expected. Also expected was that in her teens she would contribute financially to the family. Therefore, in addition to attending high school full time, she worked two jobs. But Panna had a secret: a boyfriend since eighth grade. She feared her stern father who, like other conservative Cambodian Buddhist fathers, believed in the strict segregation of the sexes. When she became pregnant, she managed to hide her condition from her mother and father. Such a difficult matter could not be discussed; it was silently, stoically borne. Some school staff noticed and spoke to her. Panna lied to them, saying her parents were aware and the baby would be adopted. By turns, she was deeply distressed and in denial about her pregnancy. Her boyfriend was unsupportive. She was on her own.

When author Doug Hood befriended Panna’s parents, he saw that a letter from the high school addressing Panna’s absenteeism had not even been opened. Panna’s mother and father were functionally illiterate. They didn’t even attempt to deal with official looking correspondence. Hood also soon learned that Panna’s arrest had been managed very irregularly by police. It certainly seemed possible that racism was a factor. Miranda Rights were not stated to Panna (“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law . . .”); her interview with the police was neither videotaped nor tape-recorded, and neither legal counsel nor her parents were present during the interrogation, even though Panna was a minor. The sentence she was given was also disproportionately long compared to those of other teenage girls who committed neonaticide—the murder of a newborn.

Daughter of Song is Doug Hood’s account of his efforts to assist the Kroms’ petition for clemency for Panna. A thought-provoking and comprehensive book, it covers Panna’s crime, the psychological assessments she underwent, her parents’ traumatic Indo-Chinese history, other neonaticide cases similar to Panna’s, as well as details about the judicial system, including Panna’s clemency hearing, and prison life.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read a pre-publication copy, and I very much hope that Daughter of Song will be widely read. It deserves to be.… (plus d'informations)