What bothers me most is the complete lack of remorse by him or his creepy family.
Posted on 09/17/2005 11:26:01 AM PDT by Gandalf_The_Gray
Hayward - Chai Soua Vang's tearful farewell to his family after his testimony a day earlier proved prophetic Friday, as a jury convicted him of nine charges that guarantee he will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing six hunters and wounding two others. After three hours of deliberations, the jury rejected Vang's claims of self-defense and found the truck driver from St. Paul, Minn., guilty of six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted homicide. In addition to the six mandatory life sentences, Vang faces an additional 225 years in prison.
His sentencing date has not been set.
Vang's family and the victims' relatives sat on opposite sides of the courtroom through six days of testimony and arguments, and they remained divided after the verdicts.
Bruce Crotteau, whose brother and nephew died in the attack, called the verdicts just, and he rejected Vang's assertions that his kin deserved to die for berating the Hmong immigrant with racial slurs and obscenities.
"The only thing they deserved that day was to continue to enjoy our family's tradition of being together," Crotteau said, standing next to Carter Crotteau, who had checked the pulses of his dead father and brother that day in the woods.
Vang's sister, Chou Vang, said the jury unfairly convicted the family patriarch without considering his plight as he faced a group of hostile hunters.
"They will never understand what my brother went through up there," Vang said. "I'm glad my brother did it, to stand up with pride and defense himself."
In an animated turn on the witness stand, Vang, 36, testified Thursday that he had gotten lost while hunting and climbed a tree stand. One of the land owners found him and ordered him to leave, but as Vang was walking out of the area, more hunters in the group intercepted him on ATVs.
Vang said they threatened him and berated him with racial slurs. One of them, Terry Willers, had fired a shot in his direction as Vang tried to walk away, Vang said, and at that point he feared for his life.
Willers testified that he never fired a shot, and that he dove for cover as Vang swung around and began to fire upon the group from about 30 yards away.
Vang wounded Willers, then charged the group and killed Dennis Drew, 55, and Mark Roidt, 28, and wounded Lauren Hesebeck, 49.
The military-trained marksman then chased the Crotteaus, Robert, 42, and Joey, 20, hundreds of yards through the thick woods. He shot each of them in the back.
After reloading and turning his coat to camouflage himself, Vang then fatally ambushed Allan Laski, 43, and Jessica Willers, 27, as they rode up an ATV. Vang claimed Laski was reaching for a rifle; none was found by investigators.
When his testimony ended Thursday and the jury was gone, Vang cried, bowed and knelt in prayer before his family.
Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager told the jury in her closing argument Friday that Vang had acted out of anger, not fear, as he stalked and killed his mostly unarmed victims.
"His response was grossly disproportionate to whatever remarks were made," Lautenschlager said later.
She minimized the role prejudice played in the confrontation and subsequent murders, saying it was a matter between two hunting parties, not a confrontation between people of different races.
In his closing argument, however, defense attorney Steven Kohn said racial prejudice was the catalyst for the events, particularly the elder Crotteau's aggressive and hostile demands that Vang leave his property.
"Those are threats, and that's intimidating and that causes fear," Kohn told the jury.
Vang's family and supporters said that racial prejudice influenced the guilty verdicts, as well. Though jurors were selected from Dane County, to avoid any potential impact of heavy pretrial publicity or strong feelings in the local community, there were no minorities among the final eight women and four men who decided the case. That denied Vang justice, some said.
"I'm not satisfied with this trial and this court," Vang's uncle, Vang Fong Vang, said. "I feel Mr. Vang is a hero, to be able to defense himself and now he is alive."
A tearful Chou Vang said the hunters who accosted her brother share a responsibility for the horrible aftermath.
"Why didn't they just let him go?" she asked. "They could have prevented this. We know it, you know it and they know it."
The Crotteaus, Laskis, Willers and Drews who spoke after the verdict avoided any mention of race. They expressed sympathy for Vang's family but reminded everyone that their loved ones are dead.
"There is no punishment great enough to equal the suffering and loss we have endured," said Marilyn Peplau, one of Dennis Drew's five siblings.
"A verdict of guilty will never bring my brother back, but we can now begin the healing process," said Linda Levan, Laski's sister. "He never deserved to die, his life was cut way too short."
Patti Willers said she misses her daughter every day, and the others said the same about their dead husbands, fathers and brothers.
As the verdicts were read, the grieving survivors showed no joy or exultation, only more of the tears that they shed throughout the trial and the days following the attack in the woods. They embraced quietly and filed out of the courtroom with both a sense of justice and the ever-present feelings of loss.
"The justice served today was a small part of the healing process," Patti Willers said.
Much of the case as presented hinged on how credible jurors found Terry Willers, who first discovered Vang in the tree stand, and who denied he ever shot at Vang later.
As the courthouse cleared, Sawyer County Sheriff's Investigator Gary Gillis said he never doubted Willers and that the quiet construction worker had never varied his story during different interviews. Vang, however, changed his story at least three times, Gillis said, at first accusing Willers of shooting his own friends.
Gillis remembers that interrogation, the morning after the slayings near the Town of Exeland.
"He had no emotions whatsoever," Gillis said. "The man I saw on the witness stand was nothing like the man I interviewed."
Gillis also contrasted the views of Vang's family, who wondered why the hunters hadn't let Vang walk away. He acknowledged that at several moments that day, the events could have turned to a peaceful conclusion.
But the blame is not on the hunters, he said.
"There's so many times that Mr. Vang could have gone in a different direction," Gillis said.
I think your state law even has rules for an express lane to "Old Smoky" on the books for crimes like this. Too bad Wisconsin isn't so enlightened.
Nope it ain't over. Now every bleeding heart red dopier diaper baby lawyer will come out from under the rocks they hide under filling endless appeals. So will all of the Silly-Sheehappless protesters screaming racism both on and off college campuses.
There that's better
What bothers me most is the complete lack of remorse by him or his creepy family.
I believe they did. They admitted that Robert got hostile but did not use racial labels. They were questioned during the trila about the labels "mud duck" and "tree rat" (IIRC). They said "mud duck" was term for Minnesota hunters in Wisconsin, "tree rat" was for one hunter using another hunter's perch without permission.
You are right! they have been extremely quiet on this-
My wife is a probation officer -spousal abuse is rampant in
various immigrant communities- they are treated different-
given lighter sentences (no felonies on record) and this
guy should have been on probation for "waving a pistol" at
his wife (plus he had other trespassing violations)-
I think he got pissed when the land owners took down his
license number- he would probably have been fined and
possibly had future hunting privs revoked.
the # 1 chilling statement:when Vang returned to the initial
wiped out hunting party.. encountered the wounded Willers..
and said" what -your not dead? " then opened fire a second
time - willers got off 1 shot and vang ran away.
Imagine if it was the other way around - a white hunter gunning down 8 Asians. Every Lieberal maroon in the western world would be howling for Federal charges to be brought.
Vang should be charged and prosecuted under Federal civil rights law. But he won't.
If ever there was a "hate" crime, listening to the crap spewing from the mouths of his family members convinces me that this is one.
Perfect observation.
Imagine what would have happened if he had done it in the name of God.
OH, NO....NOT THAT!
They most certainly have some forensic evidence now that they didn't have before.
Leni
I doubt that this was racial on the part of the hunters.
This guy is a murderer and got what he deserved by killing all of those people.
The single biggest argument against vang is the fact he shot them in the back as they fled.
Standing a tree stand he was as vulerable as he would ever be. If one of them wanted him dead he'd be dead. They apparently didn't. They apparently were in hasty retreat.
They were apparently hunted down and killed.
Now Vang will have a life in the big house. One can only regret we don't still hang people.
I mean "conscience" in a broader sense, more like someone is watching and making a list of the good and bad things that you do (Santa?). Probably more like Karma then any active voice giving guidance, I know this POS has no inherent sense of right & wrong. I just have to hope that someone is keeping score on this bad apple.
Regards,
GtG
Yes, and I'm sure Wisconsin prisons have a lot of big, mean white guys who know all about what Vang did, and are waiting for him. But due process of law is better. If you want to execute a man, pass the right laws and sentence him to death in open court, where the process can be examined. To do otherwise, however satisfying (and I can't pretend not to have mixed feelings re: Vang's probable fate), compromises the rule of law and puts us on a dangerous, slipperly slope. What if liberals started removing dissent by falsely accusing conservatives of relatively minor crimes, and then setting them up to get killed in jail? If not in the name of justice, then just for the sake of our own necks, we shouldn't go there.
As for Dahmer... it's reported that he converted to Christianity before his death. (I won't get into the connection between cannibalism and transubstantion except to reverently hope that he finally found for real in Christ, what he wrongly and vainly sought through his crimes.) Of course religion isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, nor should it be, but perhaps he might have done some good behind bars if he'd been allowed to live out his sentence.
Glad that you posted this.
You are correct, but I am not sure that when you mentioned liberals setting conservatives up, that this is not already happening.
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