Latest / Blood Trails / S3E2: The Reckoning of Chai Vang

Transcript

S3E2: The Reckoning of Chai Vang · Blood Trails

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Six hunters lay dead in the woods. Two others were wounded,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: bullet holes ripped.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Through their bodies.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: The shooter had vanished like a shadow into the Wisconsin forest.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: The first and only mass murder of American hunters carried
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: out on the first Sunday of deer season shocked and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: terrified the nation. What transpired in those horrific moments has
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: never been fully explained. But what we do know about
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: what happened and why is the stuff of nightmares. That's
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: next on Blood Trails, brought to you by Tecova's. On
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the morning of November 21st, 2004, Wisconsin Conservation Warden John
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Hagen was on patrol in Rusk County with fellow warden
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Jeremy Peary.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: I had, you know, a cell phone on me, and
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: my phone rang, and I looked down and saw it
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: was Steve.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Steve Craddow was John's childhood friend. Steve's family had a
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: cabin outside the nearby town of Hayward, and Steve had
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: invited John to visit that weekend.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I wasn't going to answer it because Jeremy and I
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: were on patrol, so I just ignored it and put
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: it back in my pocket. It was like one of
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: those ones that quits ringing and then starts ringing again.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, hmm, that's weird.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: John looked at Jeremy, who indicated he should answer the phone.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: It was Steve. And, you know, he sounded fairly panicky
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: over the phone. Like, hey, we need help. Somebody's shooting. Obviously,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: this is kind of taking me aback. Like, I'm like,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: what do you mean? Like, are you being serious? And
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: he said it again. I'm like, he slowed down. And
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: he's like, I think there's already three people dead.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: We need help.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Steve had been at the cabin with 14 other friends
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: and family since Saturday, the opening day of Wisconsin's rifle
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: deer season. Two of those friends and hunters were Alan
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Lasky and his 16-year-old son, Adam. Adam says they had
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: all hunted Saturday morning and were planning a deer drive
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: that afternoon on the 400-acre property.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: We woke up that morning and just started hearing radio
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: calls like, hey, there's somebody trespassing in our stand and
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: we don't know what's going on.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: The group communicated using radios, and one of the group,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a 47-year-old man named Terry Willers, had called to say
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: he'd found a stranger using one of their tree stands.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: This didn't sit well with Bob Craddow, who owned the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: property along with Terry. He drove out with his son
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Joey and several other hunters to confront the trespasser.
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: As soon as one of my friends went out there
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: to go talk to him, we just heard gunshots, you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: right away, like bang, bang, bang, bang. And then all
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: of a sudden, my buddy is radioing back and saying,
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: you know, we're.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Adam's dad jumped on an ATV with Jessica Willers, Terry's daughter,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: riding behind him. They had no idea what was happening,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: who was shooting at whom, or what kind of chaos
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: awaited them in those woods.
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: But they went anyway.
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: The last thing I got to say to my dad was,
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: don't do anything stupid. And, you know, soon he was gone.
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: And I think what happened in that moment was, like,
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: I just kind of got struck with terror. And I
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: just remember thinking and praying, like, God, if you're real,
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: you got to help us. So my cousin and I
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: just like hid in the cabin and we're kind of
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: hanging out. More gunshots were being fired and you kept
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: hearing rounds, bang, bang, bang, you know, and then we're
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: just wondering what's going on.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: When the gunfire finally subsided, Adam and his cousin ventured
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: out of the cabin.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: You know, my buddy comes out of the woods and
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: he says, you know, your dad's dead. My dad's dead.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: They're all effing dead. He had to go back and
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: check the pulses and like go and see what was
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: going on.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Adam and the others had to drive 30 minutes into
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: town to get cell reception to call 911.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: Trying to talk to the police officer in the parking
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: lot and explain, like, six people just died. He's like, no, no, no,
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: you guys must be drunk. Like, you don't know what
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: you're talking about. We're like, no, like, I know this
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: doesn't happen, but, you know, this is the story.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: It was almost impossible to believe that a rural county
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: of only 17,000 people had witnessed a mass murder. And
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: not in a church or shopping center, but in the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: middle of the Wisconsin Northwoods.
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: What I had loved became a place of real terror.
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: And I think just in the sense of being outside
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: and living in a small town and growing up in
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: a place where things were safe and we didn't lock
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: our car doors or our house. And then all of
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: a sudden, you kind of have your trust in the
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: world sort of broken.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: The peace of that northern Wisconsin village had been shattered.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: And when investigators finally began to understand the conflict that
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: sparked the massacre, Adam, his friends, and family found no
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: solace in that knowledge. What started as a mundane conflict
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: over hunting rights and property boundaries had erupted almost immediately
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: into a blaze of gunfire. They didn't know who to blame,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: at least not at first, but they couldn't imagine how
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: an argument about a tree stand left six dead, two wounded,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: and dozens psychologically scarred for the rest of their lives.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Sillars, and this is Blood Trails, The Reckoning
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of Chai Vang.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Part One.
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: The Victims.
• 5:40
  Speaker 7: I got a call from the Sheriff's Department advising me
• 5:45
  Speaker 7: that They were looking for some assistance in the area
• 5:49
  Speaker 7: of this.
• 5:51
  Speaker 8: Incident.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: That's Mike Bartz, who was at the time working for
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as a regional law
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: enforcement supervisor.
• 6:00
  Speaker 7: You know, at first it came out it was somebody
• 6:02
  Speaker 7: was driving around on an ATV shooting hunters. That didn't
• 6:05
  Speaker 7: sound right. And then it was reported as a hunting accident,
• 6:09
  Speaker 7: but there were three victims and that didn't sound right
• 6:11
  Speaker 7: to me either. And then Got some other radio traffic
• 6:16
  Speaker 7: that was altercation that had escalated into shooting. Shortly after
• 6:21
  Speaker 7: I got there and we got things a little bit
• 6:25
  Speaker 7: settled down, we went down to the scene, which is
• 6:30
  Speaker 7: about 300 yards away from the cabin. We went down
• 6:34
  Speaker 7: there and there were five deceased victims.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They couldn't fully process the scene with the assailants still
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: on the loose, but they had enough information from the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: surviving hunters to identify them. Along a trail that ran
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to the southeast of the cabin, they found an ATV
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and a four-wheeler. Lying next to the ATV was a 28-year-old.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Man named Mark Roit.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Mark moved to the area with his parents in 1997.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: He was, according to those who knew him, the kind
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of person who could walk into a room and have
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: everyone laughing within just a few minutes. He loved hunting
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and being outdoors, and he had just returned from a
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Colorado elk hunt. As investigators walked north up the ATV path,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: they spied another blaze orange vest lying off the trail
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to their right. This was 42-year-old Bob Crotto. Bob was
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: one of the co-owners of the property, which he'd bought
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: with earnings from his concrete company. His friends described him
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: as someone others looked up to and a pillar of
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the community. He had a wife and three kids. About
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: 200 yards to the northwest of Bob Crotto, Mike and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the others found Bob's son, Joey. Joey was only 20
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: years old when he was killed. Like his father, he
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: loved the outdoors, hunting, four-wheeling, and snowmobiling. South of Joey,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: about 150 yards, investigators discovered two more bodies, Jessica Willers
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and Alan Lasky.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Jessica was 27 years old.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: She worked as a nurse, she'd recently purchased a house,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and planned to marry her fiancé the next year.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: We reached out to all the.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Families of the victims in the course of reporting this episode.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Most didn't respond. Others declined to talk to us. For many,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: this was the worst day of their lives, and reliving it,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: even just to share memories of their loved ones, was
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: too difficult. But as you already heard, we were able
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to reach Adam Lasky, Alan's son. who told us more
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: about his father and the others who were at the cabin.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: We pray the Our Father at Mass all the time,
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: and I just, I can't think of, like, praying that
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: prayer without thinking about my dad. You know, just thinking
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: about his goodness. You know, I think I took for
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: granted that we ate meals together, that he, you know,
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: squeezed us at the end of the day, gave us
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: a hug or a kiss, and said, hey, I love you,
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: you know, have a good night. And I just thought
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: that was normal, you.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Know, Adam, as you can tell if you're watching the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: video version of this episode on YouTube, is a priest
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in the Roman Catholic Church. He serves several parishes in
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin, about two hours north from where he grew up.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: He says the Lasky family filled their freezer every year
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: with venison, northerns, and panfish, and Adam specifically mentioned his
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: mother's fried venison recipe. Much of that wild game was
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: harvested by Adam's dad, who went by Al.
• 9:24
  Speaker 9: He.
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: It like ordered his life around working like nine to
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: five and then getting up at Odark 30 and getting
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: his butt into a tree stand somewhere, you know, like
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: bow hunting or rifle hunting. You know, ice fishing was
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: always a part of our kind of normal schedule.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Al managed a lumber yard. So between that and the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: hunting and fishing, he stayed busy. But he still made
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: time for Adam and Adam's two older sisters. He was
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a central part of their lives, and it's easy to
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: see why.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: One of the things I think that I loved about
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: my dad is that he was kind of a gentle,
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: big guy. He had this big, jovial smile, but he
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: gave the best bear hugs. That's always what I like,
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: the back-cracking sort of pick-you-up bear hug. That's what I
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: remember about him, just being a very gentle and loving
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: guy and, you know, like a hard going Midwesterner, you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: whenever I smell Kodiak, I just, you know, like we're
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: winter green smell. I always think of my dad cause
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: he always smelled like a winter green snuff, you know,
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: like he would also be the guy who would go
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: to mass on Sunday with all of us. And even
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: though I think he would probably rather have been in
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: the tree stand or doing other things, like, I think
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: he made a point for us as kids to, you know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: make faith an important part of what we were about too.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: According to Adam, a lot of the other men at
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the cabin fit the same mold. Mass attendance may have varied,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: but they were all focused on family, their community, and
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the outdoors.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: It was a lot of these guys who were all
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: sort of like of a similar character to my dad.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: I think they were all kind of rough around the edges,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: blue collar men. But we're also guys who, like, if
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: you were in a pinch, would be the guys who
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: give you the shirt off their back to help you
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: out and try to get you through whatever you need
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: help with.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Losing Mark, Bob, Joey, Jessica and Al was difficult enough.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: But the tragedy didn't end when the bullets stopped flying.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: 48-year-old Loren Hesbeck was shot in the shoulder. He survived,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: but his wound required surgery. 47-year-old Terry Willers was shot
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in the neck and temporarily paralyzed. He was transported to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the hospital in critical condition, but survived and eventually recovered
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: movement in his limbs. Denny Drew wasn't so fortunate. At 55,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: he was the oldest of the victims. He was shot
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: in the abdomen and taken to the hospital, but he
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: succumbed to his injuries the next day. His obituary says
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: he loved the camaraderie of hunting as much as hunting itself,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and looked forward to the card games that always broke
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: out during trips to the cabin. Mike Bartz didn't know
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: all this as he walked those 400 acres, finding and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: covering each body one by one. But he did know
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that the men and women lying in those woods deserved justice,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and their killer was still out there.
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: Where the scene was where the victims were, We knew
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: we couldn't do anything.
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: For them at that time.
• 12:27
  Speaker 7: So then the strategy was to keep that secure, which
• 12:31
  Speaker 7: we did, and get the other hunters out of the
• 12:35
  Speaker 7: woods so whoever was left was hopefully going to be
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: our guy. My greatest fear is that the guy had
• 12:42
  Speaker 7: already slipped out somehow.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Part 2 Chai Vang Under normal circumstances, every hunter in
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: those woods would be a potential suspect. But in this case,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Mike and the others had one crucial piece of intel.
• 13:02
  Speaker 7: One of the members from the cabin had, when they
• 13:05
  Speaker 7: confronted Vang down by the tree stand, had written the
• 13:08
  Speaker 7: backtake number on the fender. That ATV was now back
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: up at the cabin where I was. So we were
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: able to copy it down there. And then we relayed
• 13:19
  Speaker 7: that information out to boots on the ground.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: With this number, Mike and the other investigators were able
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to identify the trespasser as 36-year-old Chai Sua Vang, a
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Hmong American man who lived in Minnesota. From what Terry
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and Lauren said, they knew they were also looking for
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: someone with a black or camouflage coat, a face mask,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and a semi-automatic rifle.
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: I got an aircraft out. We got the information out
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: to everybody involved on the ground, who we were looking
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: for and what had transpired. And then, um, Got some
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: radio traffic from one of our wardens, Jeremy Peary, who
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: was my field warden in Ladysmith. Initially, basically that he
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: had the person in custody, who we thought was our
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: person in custody.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: That's the same Jeremy Peary who drove to the area
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: with Warden John Hagen. He took the lead on relaying
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: information from the hunters coming out of the woods to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the tactical units on the ground in the hopes that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they might intercept Vang as he left the woods.
• 14:18
  Speaker 10: So this ATV rider had encountered Mr. Vang as he
• 14:23
  Speaker 10: was walking along a two-rut road, an.
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: Old overgrown logging road. And Mr.
• 14:31
  Speaker 10: Vang had told this individual that he was lost and
• 14:33
  Speaker 10: asked him for a ride out. And I happened to
• 14:36
  Speaker 10: encounter them as they arrived at that location. So I
• 14:39
  Speaker 10: had my flashlight on the driver. I can see that
• 14:43
  Speaker 10: there's a passenger there. I see the individual get off
• 14:47
  Speaker 10: the back, and I recognize that he is wearing camouflage clothing.
• 14:53
  Speaker 10: And the bit of intel that we had was that
• 14:56
  Speaker 10: our suspect had camouflage clothing on. He had turned his
• 15:01
  Speaker 10: blaze orange inside out. And so then when I trained
• 15:05
  Speaker 10: my flashlight on him fully, I could see that he
• 15:09
  Speaker 10: was of Asian descent, wearing camouflage clothing, matched the description
• 15:16
  Speaker 10: of our suspect. I drew my firearm and gave him
• 15:20
  Speaker 10: commands to put his gun down, which he did.
• 15:23
  Speaker 6: I listened to all my commands.
• 15:27
  Speaker 10: I placed him in handcuffs and then pulled the jacket
• 15:30
  Speaker 10: down over his shoulders and I could see that his
• 15:34
  Speaker 10: back tag number matched the back tag number that we
• 15:37
  Speaker 10: had been given of the shooting suspect.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Jeremy put him in handcuffs, sat him in the passenger
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: seat of his patrol truck, and took him to the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Sawyer County Jail.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: All without incident.
• 15:49
  Speaker 10: Didn't say anything, didn't resist, followed all my commands. It
• 15:53
  Speaker 10: was about a 15-minute ride back out to the roadway.
• 15:58
  Speaker 10: During that entire drive, all he did was look forward.
• 16:01
  Speaker 10: He didn't say anything, didn't do anything.
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: Just looked forward.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Vang's stoicism was unsettling, given the fact that he was
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: suspected of killing multiple people. But that contrast became even
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: stranger as investigators dug into his background. Because at first blush,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: he didn't seem like a killer.
• 16:23
  Speaker 9: Well, I spoke with his uncle. And the family had
• 16:30
  Speaker 9: figured that Chai was the best son of the family.
• 16:34
  Speaker 9: And they were the ones that they were going to
• 16:38
  Speaker 9: depend on Chai to take care of them in their
• 16:41
  Speaker 9: old age. The grandfather felt that way.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: That's David Whitehurst, the author of a book about this
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: incident called Tree Stand Murders. As part of research for
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: that book, David spoke to several members of Chai's family,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: who opened a window into his background. David explained that
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Chai was a Hmong American man who traveled to Wisconsin
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: from Minnesota with a group of friends to hunt deer.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: The Hmong are originally from Laos, where they lived in
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the mountains and built an economy around farming.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Hunting, and fishing.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Many fought for the United States against the communists during
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the Vietnam War and were granted refugee status after the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Americans pulled out. They brought their love of the outdoors
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: with them, and many partook of the hunting opportunities in
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the upper Midwest.
• 17:26
  Speaker 10: The Hmong hunters would come in, very efficient hunters, very
• 17:30
  Speaker 10: capable hunters. And if they had four or five carcass tags,
• 17:37
  Speaker 10: they were looking to fill four or five carcass tags.
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: They were good at it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Chai's father fought for the Americans, and he brought his
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: family to the U.S.
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: In 1980.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Chai secured his American citizenship in 1991, and by 2004,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: he had a wife, two ex-wives, and a total of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: 10 children. That's a lot of mouths to feed, and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Chai worked hard to support everyone.
• 18:00
  Speaker 9: Chai Vang was an intensely hard worker. He was a
• 18:05
  Speaker 9: very intense individual. He had two eight-hour jobs. He was
• 18:10
  Speaker 9: working 16 hours a day, five days a week, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 9: he was totally exhausted. He was way over his head financially.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Chai served in the California Army National Guard from 1989
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to 1995, where he earned a sharpshooter qualification badge and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: was trained as a medic. But he never saw combat
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and was honorably discharged. However, When investigators started looking deeper
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: into his personal life, they found something more concerning.
• 18:42
  Speaker 9: That was in a testimony of all three wives. All
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: three said the same thing, that he had a very
• 18:50
  Speaker 9: fast temper and he couldn't control his temper.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: David told me that on Christmas Eve 2002, Chai and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: his first wife got into an argument about Chai's alleged infidelity.
• 19:02
  Speaker 9: And that's when Chai Bang grabbed his handgun. He loaded it,
• 19:08
  Speaker 9: and he was going to kill his wife. And the
• 19:13
  Speaker 9: older daughter stepped in between, and she was a teenager
• 19:16
  Speaker 9: at this point. And she said, Daddy, don't do this.
• 19:21
  Speaker 9: The other children ran to the telephone and called the St.
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: Paul police.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: The police arrived before Chai pulled the trigger and charged
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: him with attempted murder. But his wife refused to press charges.
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: She knew that... Chai was the father of her children,
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: and she refused to sign the papers, so the police
• 19:42
  Speaker 9: released them. But she was worried. She knew he had
• 19:46
  Speaker 9: a quick temper, and a bad temper and that maybe
• 19:52
  Speaker 9: he didn't kill her that time, but something else would
• 19:55
  Speaker 9: happen and he might kill her.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: We assume this is true because in the subsequent days,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: she took their five children and fled to a relative
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. Meanwhile, Chai's handgun and deer rifle were confiscated,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: which is why in 2004, he was hunting with a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: cheap military surplus rifle chambered in 7.62x39, the same caliber
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: as the AK-47.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: It's impossible not.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: To wonder how history could have been different if Chai's
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: first wife had decided to press charges. We'll never know
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the answer to that question, but it was clear to
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: investigators that Chai Vang was dealing with a host of personal,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: mental issues.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And financial difficulties.
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: I saw his forensic psych report after this whole thing
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: was over, and he was a very troubled man. He
• 20:47
  Speaker 7: was a 55-gallon drum of gasoline looking for a spark.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: That's next on Blood Trails. Part 3.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: The Spark.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: With Chai Vang in custody, investigators were free to process
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the crime scene.
• 21:10
  Speaker 7: They did a great job of finding more evidentiary material
• 21:15
  Speaker 7: out there at the scene. I remember one bullet that
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: they had recovered actually had blaze orange threads still on
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: it from the victim's clothing.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Between that detailed investigation and the testimony of Chai Vang
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and the surviving victims, detectives were able to develop a
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: timeline of events. Chai had started hunting on public land
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: that morning, but he'd chased a doe until he no
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: longer recognized where he was or how to get back.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: As he was walking, he spotted a tree stand. Chai
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: claimed he climbed into the stand to see where he
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: was and find his way out. But according to Ed Killeen,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: that stand should have tipped him off immediately that he
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: was on private property.
• 21:59
  Speaker 11: He should have known he was trespassing, at least back
• 22:02
  Speaker 11: then especially. There's no tree stands, you know, on public property.
• 22:07
  Speaker 11: And he could actually see the cabin, you know, from
• 22:09
  Speaker 11: up on the tree stands.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Ed Killeen was a longtime journalist and outdoor writer in Wisconsin,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and he covered the story in detail for the Post Crescent.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: He told me that Chai had only been in the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: stand for a few minutes when he spotted someone approaching.
• 22:24
  Speaker 11: Well, when Terry first confronted the guy, it was a
• 22:27
  Speaker 11: very polite, you know, the guy says, hey, you're on
• 22:29
  Speaker 11: private property. Vang's like, I'm sorry, I'm lost, you know.
• 22:33
  Speaker 11: Willers pointed him the way out, you know, and Vang
• 22:37
  Speaker 11: was leaving. You know, after he ejected, you know, told
• 22:41
  Speaker 11: Vang to leave the property, he got on his radio
• 22:44
  Speaker 11: and said, you know, I just ejected a tree rat.
• 22:47
  Speaker 11: you know, from the property or something like that.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: This is obviously not a compliment, though Terry said he
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: didn't mean it as a slur. Vang never claimed to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: have heard it, but he did claim at trial that
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Willers made a comment along the lines of, you guys
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: shoot too many does. Vang took that as a knock
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: on Hmong hunters, though he never mentioned this comment prior
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to his testimony at trial. Terry instructed Vang to walk
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: east off the property while he followed at a distance.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But instead, Vang took the larger ATV trail going south. Meanwhile,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Bob Crotto had heard about the trespasser and decided to intervene.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Joey Crotto rode beside his father while Loren Hesbeck and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Denny Drew hopped in the back of the ATV. Mark
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Royt drove a four-wheeler by himself, and the crew took
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: a trail they knew would intercept Vang.
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: Nobody brings any guns with them. You know what I mean?
• 23:38
  Speaker 11: It was just based on the idea that they could
• 23:42
  Speaker 11: just go out there and just use a lot of
• 23:44
  Speaker 11: loud voices and intimidation.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Bob was the leader of this effort.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: He was one of the owners of the property, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: he allegedly made a comment about being tired of, quote,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: mud ducks on his property. A mud duck is a
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: term used to describe someone from Minnesota, much like you
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: might call someone from Wisconsin a cheesehead. It's not a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: racial slur, but it does suggest that Bob was already
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: frustrated by out-of-state public land hunters wandering onto his property.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: The crew intercepted Vang as he made his way south. Bob,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: already heated, didn't mince words. Here's Vang describing their interaction
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: at trial.
• 24:22
  Speaker 12: He pointed at me and said, Who are you on
• 24:24
  Speaker 12: my son's stand? Then I said, Yes. He said, Why
• 24:29
  Speaker 12: the fuck are you on my son's stand? Then I said,
• 24:32
  Speaker 12: I didn't know where you were standing. Then he said
• 24:35
  Speaker 12: something else I don't remember. Then he said, After that,
• 24:39
  Speaker 12: he told me, do you know you are trespassing 400
• 24:44
  Speaker 12: acres of.
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: Land, you dang gook?
• 24:46
  Speaker 12: Then I said, no, because I don't see any sign.
• 24:50
  Speaker 12: I don't see any fangs anywhere. And he said, I
• 24:55
  Speaker 12: don't have to put a fucking sign on your fucking chain.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: You can hear how Vang is trying to recreate Bob's tone,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: though it's doubtful his performance made him more believable. Those
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: who know Bob said he could be a bit of
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a hothead. but no one I spoke with mentioned him
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: being a racist. Terry Willer said he didn't hear Bob
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: use any racially charged language in this encounter, though he
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: also wasn't present for the entire confrontation. Lauren Hesbeck, the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: only other survivor, said Bob didn't use the same words
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Vang claimed, but he did say that Bob called Vang a, quote,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Hmong asshole. Bob asked for Vang's hunting license, which he
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: refused to hand over. Then he told Vang to get
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: off his property and never come back. As Vang walked away,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Joey flipped up Vang's back tag so they could see
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the number.
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: Eventually, they let him go.
• 25:43
  Speaker 11: But by that time, you know, they had insulted him.
• 25:49
  Speaker 11: They flipped up his back tag to get his number.
• 25:51
  Speaker 11: They'd written down his number. They said they were going
• 25:53
  Speaker 11: to have him prosecuted and all that. And so he
• 25:56
  Speaker 11: walked away and, you know, he'd had enough.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Vang claimed that as he walked away, he glanced behind
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: him to see Terry Willers raise his rifle to his
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: shoulder and point it at Vang.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Vang said he heard.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: A rifle go off and saw dust fly up from
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a bullet about 40 feet away from him. Terry and
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Lawrence say no one shot at Vang. They say that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: as Bob was yelling about sending Vang's back tag number
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to the sheriff, Vang removed the scope from his gun,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: dropped to one knee, unslung his rifle, and started shooting.
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: Vang was a soldier. He'd been trained. The fact that
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: he knelt down and clipped off.
• 26:32
  Speaker 11: That scope, that was because in a gun battle situation,
• 26:38
  Speaker 11: you're better off without the scope.
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: He was acting like a soldier.
• 26:42
  Speaker 9: And now he's facing six men, only one of whom
• 26:45
  Speaker 9: was armed. He had a rifle with ten bullets in it.
• 26:49
  Speaker 9: It was a very good shot. If he could disable
• 26:52
  Speaker 9: the one man who had a rifle, then he knew
• 26:58
  Speaker 9: If you're going to kill one, you have to kill
• 27:00
  Speaker 9: them all because dead men don't talk. And so he
• 27:07
  Speaker 9: knew he had to kill them all. What he didn't
• 27:10
  Speaker 9: expect is that they would take off running.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: David told me that Vang fired first at Terry, the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: only one of the group with a gun. He shot once,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: but Terry dove to the right and was still moving.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: So he shot again, and this time the man lay still.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Denny, Mark, and.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Lauren scrambled around the ATVs, likely trying to find cover.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Vang shot Denny once in the stomach. He shot Mark
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: once in the head, killing him on the spot. He
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: charged forward and shot Lauren through the shoulder, dropping him
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to the ground. Lauren was still alive, but Vang didn't
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: know that.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: So he took off after Bob.
• 27:45
  Speaker 11: The elder Croteau was running one way, and his son,
• 27:48
  Speaker 11: Joey Croteau, was running another way. Vang went after him,
• 27:52
  Speaker 11: chased him, and they ran in different directions entirely. You know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 11: and he chased down the elder Krato and shot him
• 27:57
  Speaker 11: in the back, then went up and, you know, finished
• 28:00
  Speaker 11: him off.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: Joey Krato covered quite a distance, you know.
• 28:03
  Speaker 11: By the time Bang circled around and tracked him down.
• 28:07
  Speaker 11: By the way, they were easy to find in the
• 28:08
  Speaker 11: woods because they're all wearing blaze orange. And I think
• 28:11
  Speaker 11: he shot him at a distance of 65 or 70 yards,
• 28:15
  Speaker 11: you know, Joey, you know, in the back.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: And there again, you know, he tracked him down and
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: finished him off.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: The medical examiner later found that Joey was shot a
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: total of five times, once in the head. Vang testified
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: at trial that he could see the 20-year-old talking on
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a radio as he ran, but he shot him and
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: he fell. Vang reloaded his rifle, continued his pursuit, and
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: killed Joey about 200 yards from where the initial confrontation
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: took place. By this time, the others at the cabin
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: were making their way out to help their friends. Steve
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Crotto had gone into town to call John Hagen for help,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and Carter Crotto, Bob's son, joined Brandon Willers in another
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: ATV and drove down to the scene. They picked up
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Terry but had to leave Denny because his injury wouldn't
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: allow him to sit upright in the vehicle. Carter and
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Brandon said later that they saw someone else in the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: woods as they were driving, but they assumed it was
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: another member of their hunting party. They later realized it
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: was Vang, who had been wearing a face mask and
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: reversed his blaze orange vest. Vang also recalled seeing the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: boys in the ATV, but admitted that he didn't shoot
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: them because he saw they had rifles and, quote, they
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: weren't shooting at me. Meanwhile, back at the cabin, Jessica
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Willers was preparing to go help her father.
• 29:33
  Speaker 9: She's an emergency room nurse in Green Bank, Wisconsin. She
• 29:38
  Speaker 9: was in her 20s, mid-20s. And she and her father
• 29:41
  Speaker 9: were very close. She would go deer hunting with her
• 29:45
  Speaker 9: dad every year. And that was one way the two
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: could spend time together.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: She tried to start an ATV, but she didn't know how.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So Alan Lasky offered to drive. They met Carter, Brandon,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: and Terry on the way to the scene, who told
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: them Denny was still injured. They continued down the path,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: but they never made it. We don't know exactly why
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Vang fired on Jessica and Alan. He claimed Alan had
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a rifle and was about to shoot him, but no
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: firearm was found anywhere near the pair. What we do
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: know is that both Terry's daughter and Adam's father were
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: shot in the back.
• 30:22
  Speaker 9: And you've got Jessica snuggled behind Alan Lansky on that ATV.
• 30:29
  Speaker 9: The first shot hit Jessica just above her buttocks. It
• 30:33
  Speaker 9: went through her body, didn't hit any bones. It exited
• 30:38
  Speaker 9: her front side, her belly. And now you've got the
• 30:42
  Speaker 9: deformed bullet. And here's Alan Lansky right in front of him.
• 30:46
  Speaker 9: The deformed bullet hit him in the back, severed his
• 30:50
  Speaker 9: spinal column. and came out his chest. He fell to
• 30:56
  Speaker 9: the ground, and he was face down, paralyzed. He couldn't
• 31:00
  Speaker 9: go anywhere. He couldn't lift a rifle or anything, even
• 31:02
  Speaker 9: if he had a rifle. Now, she is seriously wounded
• 31:09
  Speaker 9: through the left hip and her belly. So she starts
• 31:14
  Speaker 9: crawling down the trail on two hands and one knee.
• 31:18
  Speaker 9: So one knee had a mud smudge on it, She
• 31:22
  Speaker 9: was dragging the other leg because there was no mud
• 31:25
  Speaker 9: smudge on that knee. But she was frantically going down
• 31:29
  Speaker 9: that trail. She crawled past Anna Lasky's body and kept
• 31:35
  Speaker 9: going down the trail, screaming and shouting. There was a
• 31:40
  Speaker 9: deer hunter not far away who heard the female voice screams. Well,
• 31:49
  Speaker 9: at that point, Chi-Bang jumped up and came forward, and
• 31:54
  Speaker 9: Alamasky was on the ground. He shot into his body,
• 32:00
  Speaker 9: and the shell casing was on the ground right next
• 32:03
  Speaker 9: to his body. At that point, Jessica Willards was crawling away, screaming, shouting,
• 32:09
  Speaker 9: desperately trying to find safety. Couldn't find it. Chi-Bang walked
• 32:14
  Speaker 9: up behind her, shot her in the back, and killed her.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: David believes Vang killed the pair because they were headed
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: towards the scene of the first shooting, where he'd left
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: his scope. It's possible Vang believed that if he could
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: kill everyone who saw him and recover the scope with
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: his fingerprints on it, he'd be able to get away
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: without being identified. But he didn't know that Terry had
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: already written down his back tag number. He also didn't
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: know that Loren Hesbeck was still alive.
• 32:41
  Speaker 9: Well, he got back and he was very surprised. And
• 32:45
  Speaker 9: he said, I didn't say it this in the book,
• 32:47
  Speaker 9: but what he said was, You fucker not dead. And
• 32:50
  Speaker 9: raised his rifle and started shooting again.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Loren grabbed Terry's rifle, a semi-automatic Browning, and dove behind
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: a small rise in the dirt. He heard Vang's bullets
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: flying over his head, but he raised Terry's rifle above
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the dirt and pulled the trigger.
• 33:05
  Speaker 9: And nothing happened because the safety was on. He fingered
• 33:08
  Speaker 9: around the trigger guard and he found a button. He
• 33:12
  Speaker 9: pushed it and heard a click. So he shimmied the
• 33:15
  Speaker 9: rifle up, pulled the trigger, and it shot once.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: It was at this moment the sound of a diesel
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: engine echoed through the woods. Other members of the hunting
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: party were arriving with a truck to transport Denny Drew
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: to the hospital. Vang claimed that he still had ammunition
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and could have killed Lauren, but he decided to leave
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and later that day threw his ammo in the swamp.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But most believe he just ran out of ammunition, heard
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the others approaching, and fled. When investigators finally put all
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: the pieces together, something seemed to be missing. Even if
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Terry had fired the first shot, Vang's relentless pursuit of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: unarmed hunters was inexplicable. Even those hunters could barely find
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the words to describe their experience.
• 34:00
  Speaker 11: When Brandon Willers, he rescued his father from the woods
• 34:05
  Speaker 11: and drove him to the hospital. While they're driving to
• 34:07
  Speaker 11: the hospital, Willers kept saying, it was stupid.
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: It was stupid. You know, and To me, that kind
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: of sums it up.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: The shooting was over in minutes. Explaining why Chai Vang
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: had killed six people would take years. And in the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: woods of northern Wisconsin, a different kind of conflict was
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: just beginning to take shape. As the families began to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: grieve and funerals commenced, the story of the massacre spread
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: across Wisconsin, the nation, and the world. The general public
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: didn't know all the details, but they did know that
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: six hunters were dead, two were wounded, and there didn't
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: appear to be any justification for the atrocity. Officials were concerned,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, with securing justice for the victims.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: But they were also.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Concerned that Vang's actions might spark backlash. Here's Mike Bartz
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: and Jeremy Peary.
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: As a conservation warden, we had concerns that there might
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: be some, who knows, some kind of violence as a
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: result of it.
• 35:23
  Speaker 10: I started working up there in 1999, and there were
• 35:25
  Speaker 10: already prejudice against the hunting tactics of Hmong hunters.
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: It had always been there.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: The first generation of Hmong hunters who immigrated from Laos
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: didn't speak English. They had trouble navigating the complex system
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: of hunting regulations in this country, and some flouted those
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: laws and took as many animals as they could. American
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: hunters didn't appreciate this, especially landowners like Bob Crotto. Mike
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and his colleagues worried this simmering resentment would, in light
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: of the massacre, break out into violence. And there were
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: actors who seemed to be stoking the flames.
• 36:05
  Speaker 7: There were some really nasty things that came out from
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: a group. right afterwards called the National Alliance, white supremacist
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: garbage stuff, but they were putting up flyers all over
• 36:15
  Speaker 7: the place.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Mike sent me one of these flyers. The title urges, quote,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: racial unity in the wake of Vang's attack. It laments that, quote,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Jews have divided America by importing nearly 100 million non-whites
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: and says whites should all hang together or hang separately.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: A week after the massacre, reports started to surface of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: bumper stickers that said, save a hunter, shoot a mung,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: with mung spelled M-U-N-G. A shop owner in Wisconsin began
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: selling them the next month, though he claimed that mung
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: was an acronym for minuscule, unseen, naughty gnat.
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: I remember those bumper stickers.
• 36:54
  Speaker 13: I hate it, but I remember those bumper stickers.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: That's Yia Vang, a chef and outdoorsman in Minneapolis. Yia
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: is not related to chai, though they share a surname.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: He was in college in 2004, and he remembers not
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: just the bumper stickers, but shirts and other products as well.
• 37:10
  Speaker 13: I remember even those, like, if you go out to
• 37:13
  Speaker 13: any of, like, the hunting areas, you'll see signs out there. Like,
• 37:16
  Speaker 13: there's literal guys who wrote down a sign to put
• 37:18
  Speaker 13: it on their lawn. It was the very few times.
• 37:20
  Speaker 14: In my life that I was really happy that my
• 37:22
  Speaker 14: parents didn't speak or read English. I'm not going to lie.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Everyone I spoke with was quick to point out that
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: while resentment among non-Mung hunters was real, these examples of
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: overt racism were few and far between and do not
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: represent the larger Sawyer County community. The families of the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: victims rarely spoke to the media, but in December of 2004,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Teresa Hesbeck, Lauren Hesbeck's sister, issued a statement.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: She said, quote, I would.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Like to ask that anyone who is trying to make
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: this a racial issue, either white or minority, would please
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: stop this and know that is a dishonor to all
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of our loved ones to continue these acts of prejudice.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: There was no retaliation in the months leading up to
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: the trial, or arguably even after that. Still, the Hmong
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: community wasn't taking any chances. Yi had told me that
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: the leaders of the 18 Hmong clans advised their people
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: to stay away from the woods and use caution everywhere else.
• 38:21
  Speaker 13: And they kind of put out this decree to all
• 38:24
  Speaker 13: Hmong people, not just in the Midwest, but all Hmong
• 38:27
  Speaker 13: people across the country.
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: Like, hey, like, let's just hope off on hunting outdoors
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: this year.
• 38:34
  Speaker 13: I think for the Hmong kids in college, we just
• 38:36
  Speaker 13: kept our heads down. And I remember my mom said
• 38:39
  Speaker 13: something to me like, just say you don't know him.
• 38:42
  Speaker 13: Just say that.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: You don't know him.
• 38:45
  Speaker 14: And I think that there were a lot of wandering
• 38:48
  Speaker 14: people going, hey, dude, like, you're.
• 38:49
  Speaker 13: The only one guy I know, and your last name
• 38:51
  Speaker 13: is Vang.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: Do you know him? And I'm like, no, I don't.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: You can imagine the fear of Yia and his family
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: as they worried that the actions of one man would
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: be attributed to their entire community. That was clearly happening
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: in some circles, but there were also people who tried
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: to defend Vang's actions.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: I'm proud of him for who he is.
• 39:12
  Speaker 12: You know, I'm not ashamed of him. I'm not ashamed
• 39:16
  Speaker 12: to tell, let people know that he's my brother because.
• 39:23
  Speaker 9: He did what he had to do.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: That's La Vang, Chai's sister, speaking in a documentary titled
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Open Season. And she wasn't the only one who felt
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: this way, according to Wah Meng Wah, editor of Hmong Today.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Here he is speaking to Court TV in 2005.
• 39:39
  Speaker 12: People do feel like Vang is the martyr who stood
• 39:44
  Speaker 12: up for the Hmong people, and.
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: He's actually being praised.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: When David Whitehurst put his book on consignment at a
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Hmong bookstore in St. Paul, he ran into the same sentiment.
• 39:58
  Speaker 9: The man who ran the bookstore said, nobody's going to
• 40:00
  Speaker 9: buy these. And he said, the Hmong people feel that
• 40:05
  Speaker 9: they shot at him first and he returned fire. His
• 40:10
  Speaker 9: story to the Hmong people was that they shot at
• 40:15
  Speaker 9: me and I was just defending myself, defending my race.
• 40:19
  Speaker 9: And they all say, He's a hero. He's a good guy.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Of course, not all Hmong feel this way, then or now.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Here's Ye.
• 40:28
  Speaker 13: I don't believe what Chai did was right. I am 100%
• 40:34
  Speaker 13: against that. I am 100%. It was a tragedy. Awful, awful, awful.
• 40:40
  Speaker 13: I don't want a but behind it. There's no buts.
• 40:43
  Speaker 13: It's just boom, period. We're done with that statement.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: There is no doubt that some tried to use this
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: tragedy to advance their own agenda, regardless of the facts.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: But based on my conversations with those who were there
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: at the time, most people were willing to wait for
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: those facts to come to light. They wanted to know
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: what sparked the conflict and how the shooting began. But
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: most of all, they wanted to hear how Chai Vang
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: would explain himself when he testified in his own defense
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: 10 months later.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: All this and more is next.
• 41:15
  Speaker 7: Don't go anywhere.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Part 5.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: The Trial.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Judge Norman Yackel opened proceedings in the state of Wisconsin v.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Chai Sua Vang on September 10, 2005. The trial took
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: place in the Sawyer County Courthouse, but the jury was
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: from Madison, about 280 miles south. Vang was represented by
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: two experienced defense attorneys from Milwaukee, Stephen Cohn and Jonathan Smith.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Smith told me they considered entering an insanity plea, but
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Vang passed all the mental competency evaluations. So they took
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: their client at his word and argued that Vang acted
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: in self-defense.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: He has been shot at by people that he was
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: walking away from not wanting to have a confrontation with.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Smith pointed out that the group of men had yelled
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: at Vang, intimidated him, and were following closely behind as
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: he tried to walk away. As soon as the shot
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: rang out from Terry's rifle, Vang was justified in firing back.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: He's under attack. So having been shot at, he's going
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: to defend himself and he's going to return fire, which
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: in fact he did.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: The problem for Vang and his attorneys was that Terry
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Willers denied this allegation and Loren Hesbeck backed him up.
• 42:39
  Speaker 8: Listen, was Vang nervous and afraid? I'm sure he was. Okay,
• 42:44
  Speaker 8: he's alone.
• 42:45
  Speaker 15: There's, you know, six guys out there. A couple of
• 42:47
  Speaker 15: them are getting in his face, yelling at him. But
• 42:51
  Speaker 15: nobody touched him. Nobody threatened him. I mean, those are
• 42:53
  Speaker 15: just the facts.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: That's Roy Cordy, one of the prosecutors on this case.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: The prosecution was led by Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lottenschlager,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: and Roy assisted her along with Donald Lataraca. Roy explained
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: that Terry's gun had a capacity of five rounds, and
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: it was recovered with four. One had been fired, but
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: as you heard earlier, Lorne claimed to have fired one
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: shot in his brief gun battle with Vang. Now, the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: casing from that shot was never recovered, so neither the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: prosecution nor the defense was able to mount a case
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: based on that physical evidence. But there are other reasons
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to doubt that Terry pulled the trigger.
• 43:31
  Speaker 15: Terry always struck me as a very Level-headed, calm, reasonable person.
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: I never saw him angry.
• 43:40
  Speaker 15: Even when the guy's sitting there testifying about killing his daughter.
• 43:45
  Speaker 15: Terry had already encountered the guy and was polite. Vang
• 43:49
  Speaker 15: never claimed that Terry, you know, called him names, threatened him,
• 43:54
  Speaker 15: pointed his gun at him or anything. So why all
• 43:56
  Speaker 15: of a sudden would it become a totally different Terry Willers?
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: It is still possible Terry fired first.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Several people I spoke with wondered if Terry's gun might
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: have gone off accidentally. But even if that happened, Vang
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: had an even bigger problem.
• 44:12
  Speaker 15: He'd be justified in shooting back at the person who
• 44:16
  Speaker 15: shot at him. None of the other people had weapons.
• 44:20
  Speaker 15: He was not in any immediate danger of death or
• 44:24
  Speaker 15: great bodily injury from the other people who were there.
• 44:27
  Speaker 15: One guy pulled a gun, I get to kill all
• 44:29
  Speaker 15: his friends.
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: No, it doesn't work that way.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Bob and Joey were running away, and Vang shot them
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: in the back. Jessica and Alan likely never even saw
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: their attacker as he lay prone in the forest. Vang
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: claimed Alan had a rifle, but none was found. Justifying
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: these killings seemed impossible, but Vang's attorneys had a response.
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: So when you have people coming in from different localities,
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: having been summoned in by the people that you believe
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: shot at you, that... threat continues until the siege is over.
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: And I think it's very much a military sort of mentality.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: You know, if you were the only person in a
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: foxhole and the enemy kept coming, you're going to keep
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: shooting them, right? The confusion of the scene of the woods,
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: the trees, the shadows, the noise coming in and out,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: the radio traffic, you know, there's a lot of commotion.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: And to his mindset, he acted in self-defense through the
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: end of it. that interaction.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Vang, he didn't consistently act like most people
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: would in a self-defense scenario. The threat from Terry's rifle
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: was gone after Vang's first barrage. He could have run
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: away after shooting Lauren or after shooting Joey. Instead, he
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: stayed in the area and reloaded his rifle.
• 45:51
  Speaker 15: When Brandon Willers and Carter Crotto come back on the
• 45:55
  Speaker 15: ATV when they hear the calls for help, what does
• 45:57
  Speaker 15: Vang say?
• 45:58
  Speaker 8: I didn't shoot him. because they had a gun, right?
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, that's telling in and of itself.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Vang was inconsistent in his actions, but as the jury
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: heard during the week-long trial, he was also inconsistent in
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: his statements.
• 46:14
  Speaker 15: The first interview, and it was this bizarre, implausible, ridiculous
• 46:20
  Speaker 15: story of, yeah, I was out hunting, this guy came
• 46:24
  Speaker 15: up to me, pulled a gun on me, disarmed me,
• 46:27
  Speaker 15: and then started shooting everybody else.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Vang abandoned that story pretty quickly, and his subsequent accounts
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: were more plausible.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: But the details kept changing.
• 46:37
  Speaker 15: Sometimes it was all of them threatened me and called
• 46:40
  Speaker 15: me names. Other times it was no, just Bob and
• 46:42
  Speaker 15: Joey threatening him or calling him names. It goes from,
• 46:46
  Speaker 15: I saw them with guns to only Terry Willers had
• 46:50
  Speaker 15: a gun. I saw guns on the ATVs, and then
• 46:54
  Speaker 15: I didn't see any guns on the ATVs.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Vang's contradictory statements hurt his credibility on the stand. but
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: it also stood in stark contrast to the cold, blunt
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: way he described shooting and killing six people.
• 47:08
  Speaker 12: And then I saw Mark Wright scramble around the back.
• 47:12
  Speaker 12: I shot him one more time. Then I shot him
• 47:14
  Speaker 12: one time. I looked to the west of the ATV
• 47:18
  Speaker 12: and Dennis Drew, Mr. Dennis Drew, started scrambling around of
• 47:23
  Speaker 12: the ATV. I shot him one more time.
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: I turned around.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: Mr.
• 47:26
  Speaker 12: Lorne Hatchback, he started getting up and running northeast to
• 47:30
  Speaker 12: the wood. So he tripped something. He fell down. So
• 47:34
  Speaker 12: he's about like here, about 10, 15 feet away. So
• 47:37
  Speaker 12: I shot him one more time.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: For those who aren't watching this episode on YouTube, Vang
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: actually stands up in the witness box as he acts
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: out shooting Mark, Denny, and Lauren. Jonathan Smith told me
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: he prepared Vang for testifying in his own defense, but
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: he never expected Vang to do what he did.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: Now you have the actor who's almost literally acting it
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: out on the stand, I think that that was really unanticipated.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: I know, I guess I tried not to show it
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: as I was working them through that. I wouldn't normally
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: suggest to a client that they use the person's first
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: names when referring to people that they had shot and killed.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: So I don't think it went as smoothly as it
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: could have.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Smith believes Vang did feel remorse, but his stoic demeanor
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: didn't do him any favors. That blunt, logical attitude was
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: on full display throughout his testimony, but no more so
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: than at the end.
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: Can you tell me.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: If on that day, Mr.
• 48:43
  Speaker 12: Crotto deserved to die?
• 48:48
  Speaker 7: Robert Crotto?
• 48:49
  Speaker 9: No.
• 48:51
  Speaker 14: And can you tell me on that day if.
• 48:54
  Speaker 15: Mr. Reut deserved to die?
• 48:57
  Speaker 8: No.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: Can you tell me if on that day Mr.
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: Drew deserved to die?
• 49:01
  Speaker 9: No.
• 49:03
  Speaker 12: Can you tell me if on that day.
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: Joseph Prado deserved to die?
• 49:13
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 49:14
  Speaker 12: Can you tell me if on that day Mr. Lasky
• 49:17
  Speaker 12: deserved to die?
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Can you tell me if on that day Ms. Willers
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: deserved to die?
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: No.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: Mr.
• 49:28
  Speaker 12: Robert and those three, the one that I pretty much
• 49:31
  Speaker 12: feel think that they deserve.
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: And Mr. Crotto, why did he deserve to die?
• 49:38
  Speaker 12: Because he's the one that come in, confront me the
• 49:40
  Speaker 12: first time and yell at me, call my name. And
• 49:45
  Speaker 12: that's who he is.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: It's hard to understand if Vang believed he acted in
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: self-defense why he would admit that some of his victims
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: did not deserve to die. Smith thinks his client was
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: hampered by a language barrier and misunderstood the question. Vang
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: may not have been speculating on whether he was justified
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: under the law, just how he felt about each victim.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: I think it's suggestive that he was telling the truth.
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: Or at least as he Believed it, right? It's a
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: pretty decent distinction to say, yeah, well, these two or
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: three absolutely deserved it. Saw the one, I feel bad
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: about that one because they didn't technically do anything to me.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: But there's almost no doubt that to the jury, it
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: came across as unbelievably calloused.
• 50:33
  Speaker 8: Yeah, that didn't help.
• 50:33
  Speaker 15: People weren't looking to hear that. They want to hear, okay, okay,
• 50:38
  Speaker 15: you said that Willer shot you or shot at you
• 50:41
  Speaker 15: and missed and you shot back.
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 50:43
  Speaker 8: Okay. but I assume it had a big impact. It
• 50:46
  Speaker 8: had certainly a substantial impact.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what the jury thought of all
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: of Vang's testimony, but we do know they only deliberated
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: for three hours before reaching a guilty verdict. In a
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: subsequent hearing, Vang was sentenced to six consecutive life terms
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: in prison. Ed Killeen was there throughout the trial, and
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: in an article for the Post-Crescent, he described how the
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: families of the victims reacted.
• 51:11
  Speaker 11: As the jury passed his verdict, their grips became visibly tighter.
• 51:17
  Speaker 11: Yackel had warned against any outburst, and there was none.
• 51:21
  Speaker 11: No sound escaped the lips of anyone in the courtroom.
• 51:24
  Speaker 11: As Yackel read the verdict, some family members cried quietly,
• 51:28
  Speaker 11: others leaned into each other's for support on both sides.
• 51:32
  Speaker 11: Once the jury was excused and Bang had been taken
• 51:34
  Speaker 11: from the courtroom, many of them hugged each other.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: I asked Adam how he felt knowing his father's killer
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: was going to prison. And his response mirrored the somber
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: reaction of his family and friends.
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: What I don't think we're seeing in our justice system
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: is actual justice, because it's not like this makes it
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: go away or somehow takes the teeth away from the
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: trauma of a sudden loss of somebody that you love.
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: And at the end of the day, I just wasn't
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: super satisfied with seeing Chai Vang go to prison, unfortunately.
• 52:05
  Speaker 9: I don't know.
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: I just felt like it didn't do it for me, ultimately.
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: There was a deeper fix that needed to happen, and
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: that wasn't making it.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Adam isn't saying he disagreed with the verdict, and he
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: acknowledges that it was cathartic for his community. He's also
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: not saying he wanted Vang to be executed. But he
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: was looking for the kind of closure a courtroom can't offer.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: And as he explained in our interview, he believes he
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: found it. Part 6 This case is difficult for many reasons,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: but one of the most troubling is that we still
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: don't know why Vang did what he did. I asked
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: everyone this question, and many echoed Roy's assessment.
• 52:50
  Speaker 8: I think he just lost it. He just was angry.
• 52:53
  Speaker 15: He had other encounters in the past with hunters, which
• 52:59
  Speaker 15: didn't go well.
• 53:00
  Speaker 8: A lot of yelling and name-calling.
• 53:03
  Speaker 15: He had temper. He had a history of it. So
• 53:06
  Speaker 15: I don't know if he just, you know, just got
• 53:10
  Speaker 15: angry because it was deliberate.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: However you explain them, Vang's actions have echoed through the decades.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: His wives and children lost a father, husband, and primary provider.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: After the trial concluded, David Whitehurst witnessed an interaction between
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Vang and his family that spoke to that loss.
• 53:28
  Speaker 9: How he dropped onto his knees and put his forearms
• 53:33
  Speaker 9: on the floor and put his head on the floor,
• 53:36
  Speaker 9: crying heavily, you know, shoulders bouncing, back bouncing. As he
• 53:41
  Speaker 9: was crying and dropped down, a total of three times
• 53:45
  Speaker 9: he'd stand up and drop down, stand up and drop down.
• 53:48
  Speaker 9: Each time calling to his family and begging for forgiveness.
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: And they were crying.
• 53:58
  Speaker 9: Most of those among people were crying.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: The families of Vang's victims no doubt wondered why that
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: contrition was never directed at them. But it's clear that
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Vang's family suffered tremendously, even though they didn't pull the trigger.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Ye also told me that for many years, Hmong hunters
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: and anglers stayed away from the woods.
• 54:18
  Speaker 14: Even till today, the echo of what happened 20-some years
• 54:21
  Speaker 14: ago still affects to today where now we're just starting
• 54:26
  Speaker 14: to see young Hmong men and women that are starting
• 54:32
  Speaker 14: to enjoy the outdoors again or feeling like it's okay.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: This might seem like an odd reaction in light of
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the fact that the victims in this case were white,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: not Hmong. But Ye and others had reason to worry
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: about backlash. In 2007, a 30-year-old Hmong hunter named Cha
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Vang was shot and stabbed to death by 28-year-old James
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Nichols near Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Nichols had made anti-Mung statements in
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the past, and he even claimed to have known one
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: of Chai Vang's victims, Denny Drew. Roy Cordy prosecuted that
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: case as well, and he told me it was most
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: likely the result of a conflict over public hunting land,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: not a targeted attack on a specific Mung person. Nichols
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: also lied about knowing Denny Drew. Still, it was exactly
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing the Mung community was afraid would happen,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: and it kept many out of the woods for years.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Here's game warden Jeremy Peary.
• 55:26
  Speaker 10: But the year after, in 2005, the gun deer season,
• 55:31
  Speaker 10: I did not encounter another Hmong hunter in Russ County
• 55:33
  Speaker 10: in those areas where I would typically encounter Hmong hunters.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Of course, the greatest impact was felt by Vang's victims.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: The Crottos lost a father and husband, a brother and son.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Terry Willers watched his daughter drive away towards danger and
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: never saw her alive again. Adam Lasky told me he
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: spent a long time hating the man who'd stolen his father.
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: At the time, you know, I just loathed this guy.
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: I couldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole. I couldn't
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: even think about him without just, like, you know, foaming.
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: And I think it just took me so long just to, like,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: even be able to say Chai Vang's name, you know, or, like,
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: even be able to talk about my dad in my
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: house with my family, you know. It took us the
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: years to get to a place, I think, where, you know,
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: we felt like there was some sort of normalcy coming back.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Part of that road to normalcy, Adam says, lay in
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: letting go of his hate. It took him many years,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: but he realized that if his father's death was eclipsed
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: by his hatred of Chai Vang, his father's life might
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: be as well.
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: Because it provides an opportunity to kind of not let
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: his life be defined by his traumatic death or not
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: let my experience of him be locked in only to
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: this experience of trauma and death. Because I think that's
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: what is really painful is like when you can't think
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: about this person lovingly or, you know, outside of that context,
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: it's like you kind of get stuck interpreting reality in this,
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: this bitter loop of, you know, like everyone's out to
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: get me.
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: And that's not true.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: After Adam became a priest, he decided he wanted to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: hold a mass service at the cabin. He prayed for
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: his father, but he also prayed for Chai.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: Celebrating mass out there was like this weightiness of death
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: and the weightiness of like, in the mystery of Jesus,
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: like how does this death and this experience of trauma
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: and like all of the sin in the world, and
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: particularly like this sin that affected my family, like, you know,
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: crashing into the middle of like the death and the resurrection,
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: the dying and the rising of Jesus Christ. And so like,
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: so to me, I was like weeping and bawling as
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: I was picking up the hosts and the wine, you know,
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: at the altar. And it was this interesting experience of
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: like feeling a lot of the weight of the whole
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: thing and like the loss, not just for me and
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: my family, but for like Chai Vang and all of
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: his family. And I just, remember thinking and praying like
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: for them very specifically. And like, they lost a father too,
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: when this happened, you know, like they, they were wounded
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: and broken and were experiencing hurt because of all of
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: this as well.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Adam says working through the process of forgiving Chai has
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: given him a freedom that a life of resentment never could.
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: This sense of like a journey of, of healing and
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: finding just like the freedom, um, It's not to reduce
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: this person to an object, you know, not to reduce
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: this person to somebody who deserves my punishment. But ultimately, like,
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: I don't think it cheapens my love for my dad.
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: If anything, it deepens it.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Department of Justice announced that
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Chai Vang had passed away in prison. They didn't list
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: a cause of death, and so far, they haven't responded
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: to our request for that information. We'll never know exactly
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: why Vang killed six hunters that cold November day, but
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: wherever he is, Adam hopes he finds peace.
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: When I heard just a couple of months ago that
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: Chai Vang had died, I think one of my responses
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: was like, you know, God have mercy on his soul.
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: And I meant that. Like, I want God to have
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: mercy on his soul. I want that he meets the
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: mercy of the Lord and that he would be able
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: to be reconciled repentant for whatever sins or offenses he
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: had and that he would be able to, you know,
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: to be contrite in that. Like, I think that's the
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: best thing that I can pray for somebody like that.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: When I asked Adam whether he still gets into a
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: tree stand, I was happy to hear that he does
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: every year with the Browning Abel 280 he got from
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: his dad.
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: I still love hunting. That's part of the beauty too,
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: is like getting on the bike, you know, you almost
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: have to just get back out there every year and say,
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: I'm going to go sit in the tree stand because
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: I'm Like, I just need to do this, you know,
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: I'm going to get out there. The first year, my
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: cousin and I just decided, like, we're going to go. And,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: you know, he got a big buck. And then the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: next year we went out, like, I got this big buck.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: And it was just sort of fun to, like, get
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: back into hunting. And I still love it. I still
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: think it's a great rite of passage. I still think
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: it's a great thing for families. And it's a culture.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 7: That I like.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: you'd like to see.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Images of Chai Vang, his victims and their families, and
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: maps of the area, head over to TheMeatEater.com slash Blood Trails.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: You can also check out the video version of this
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: episode on YouTube. Huge thanks to everyone who spoke to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: me for this episode. Adam Lasky, Roy Cordy, Jonathan Smith,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Jeremy Peary, Mike Bartz, John Hagen, Ea Vang, Ed Collain,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: and David Whitehurst. There's a ton more detail in David's book,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Tree Stand Murders, so you.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: Should check that out.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: or you know about another you think we should cover,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: send me an email at bloodtrailsatthemeateater.com.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: See you next time.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there.