Second Alabama child's body found

Lam Luong has been charged with four counts of murder

A second body has been found in the search for four children allegedly thrown by their father into the sea in the US state of Alabama.

The discovery of the three-year-old boy's body came a day after the remains of a four-month-old infant were found.

Lam Luong, 37, initially confessed to throwing the children off a bridge last week but retracted his confession. The search for all the children continues.

Mr Luong is being held without bail on four counts of capital murder.

He and his wife, 23-year-old Kieu Phan, reported the children - who range in age from four months to three years old - missing a week ago.

Kidnap claim

The body of four-month-old Danny was found on Saturday morning by a duck hunter, about five miles (8km) west of the bridge from which the children were allegedly thrown into Mobile Bay.

The children were allegedly thrown from a bridge into the sea

The body of the second boy was spotted on Sunday near the shore in Bayou La Fourche Bay, several miles further west.

Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran said the remaining two bodies could be in the same area or have been carried by currents closer to the Alabama-Mississippi state line, the Associated Press news agency reports.

District Attorney John Tyson Jr said Mr Luong had initially confessed to throwing the children into the sea from the Dauphin Island Bridge after an argument with Kieu Ngoc Phan.

Later, he denied this, insisting that two women had taken the children.

He appeared in court last Thursday, where he was formally charged. If convicted of capital murder, he could face the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The three younger children - Hannah, two, Lindsey, one, and Danny - are Lam Luong's, while the eldest, three-year-old Ryan, is his wife's son from a previous relationship.

Mr Luong came to Alabama from Vietnam in 1984 when he was a teenager and worked as a shrimper.