Posted on 11/24/2004 7:45:29 AM PST by whodeani
Homicide connection explored Sunday's shooting has similarities to a 2001 killing 80 miles away
By JOHN DIEDRICH jdiedrich@journalsentinel.com Posted: Nov. 23, 2004
Law enforcement agencies are investigating if the man suspected of killing six deer hunters and injuring two others was involved in the unsolved slaying of a deer hunter three years ago in a nearby Wisconsin county, a detective said Tuesday.
Clark County Sheriff's Department Detective Kerry Kirn said he has exchanged frequent calls with investigators in Sawyer County since Monday morning.
"I can tell you we have been in contact with authorities from Sawyer County to address that," Kirn said. "It is premature to speculate if there is a connection."
On Nov. 23, 2001, Jim Southworth was shot to death as he hunted on family land 10 miles east of Neillsville in one of the only other homicides ever to be linked to Wisconsin's deer hunting season.
Southworth was shot twice in the back and both bullets exited his chest, an autopsy found.
Witnesses reported a pickup truck with three men inside on a road near where Southworth's body was found, about 80 miles south of Sunday's shooting.
The three men were described as Asian from 5-foot-4-inches to 6-feet. They were driving a silver or gray Nissan or Chevrolet pickup truck, possibly a late 1980s model with a light-colored fiberglass topper.
Chai Soua Vang, 36, of St. Paul, Minn., who is suspected of shooting eight hunters Sunday, is 5-foot-4-inches, according to a court document. Vang has owned a 1987 Nissan pickup, according to an online search service. According to court records, Vang allegedly shot several of Sunday's victims in the back.
The Sawyer County rampage was allegedly sparked by a dispute over Vang using a deer stand on private property. One of the theories Clark County authorities have been pursuing is that Southworth was shot after confronting a trespasser.
Officials said that Vang was hunting with two other people on Sunday, before he became lost and wandered onto the private property. Police are looking for those other people.
Vang did have an out-of-state license to hunt in Wisconsin in 2001, said Mike Bartz, a Department of Natural Resources warden manager. He also had a license in 2000, 2002 and this year, he said.
Kirn called the three people being sought in Southworth's murder "persons of interest."
"To our knowledge, those are the only three people who we haven't identified who were in that area that day," Kirn said.
Kirn said he could not comment on whether Vang has been or will be questioned in the Southworth case. Investigators from the state Department of Justice are investigating both cases, he said.
"They need to do their investigation and when all facts come out, and they will relay that to me, and we'll make the comparison," Kirn said.
The Sawyer County Sheriff's Department, the first to respond to Sunday's shooting, referred questions to the Department of Justice. A spokesman there declined to comment on whether a connection was being investigated between the two cases.
Told of the two cases, a retired FBI agent said his experience tells him that they could very well be related.
"The odds of the two being unrelated are astronomical, I would say," said Bob Dwyer, who now works as a private investigator in Florida.
But an absence of physical evidence in the 2001 case could make it difficult to prove such a connection, Dwyer said. The best way to tie two crimes together is to match weapons or bullets, he said.
Kirn declined to comment on what kind of gun was used to kill Southworth or if they recovered bullets in the woods where he was shot. A warden said last year that investigators were looking for casings.
The hunting rifle Southworth was carrying - a Ruger model 77 bolt action .03-06-caliber - was missing.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov04/278124.asp
Probably some of the Hmoungs are "nice" but maybe many appeared to be on our side in Vietnam because they liked hunting down Vietnamese anyhow.
Importing tribal people with all their cultural ways isn't a good practice.
That's already happened on other threads --- people claiming the guy was justified because he claimed the victims called him names and were racists. People say they once knew a Hmoung family which was hard-working so they just know every single Hmoung has to be good.
yep.
the Montangards and Chungs and Nungs (etc.)..
the lucky ones got out.
Here in Middle TN, we have a large Laotian community...most are ok and lean right but they have a serious gang problem....ditto the few Viets.
Primitive tribal mores bear consequences especially in a "modern" land.
I would ask why in the H are they importing tropical tribals to the Great White North....ditto the Somalis to Maine?
Viets to the Gulf Coast makes more sense....but that has not been w/o problems either.
I would ask why in the H are they importing tropical tribals to the Great White North....ditto the Somalis to Maine?
===
Lutheran Social Services -- might know. They brought them.
what makes wisconsin cheese so good?.
Now there's a controversy as to who fired first. (In regards to the shootings last week.)
Haven't heard the survivors story at this point, but that could be moot if their testimony is needed as evidence.
Immigration should be done on an individual basis. If an individual is willing to leave his country, his tribe, his culture etc behind and wants to come here to be an American --- that's great but it's stupid for us to be importing entire tribes and villages --- keeping them together and their cultural ways intact. Assimilation is the only way immigration can work out right.
It sounds to me that the Hmongs will do a lot to get the stereotype of the successful studious Asians down to a pretty low level. These are just polygamous backward people who rely on many welfare programs to survive here. Certain individual Hmong might be okay --- but it would see they would have little interest in living in their tribal groups --- the tribal people should go home.
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Shooting a human being in the back is the sign of a real coward. This guy shot these people ON PURPOSE.
Vang needs to be summarily executed for his criminal acts against man and God. His wanton murder of unarmed, defenseless people, his attempted escape, and the probabilty that he is a thrill-seeking serial killer, clearly call for immediate retribution. Had this happened in the Old West, Vang would now be lying in an unmarked grave in Boot Hill.
Ladysmith is occupied elsewhere today. I am tending to the ping list in her absence.
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will do
Smart of them; once you stir up a hornet's nest of snipers, you don't go looking for trouble.
Does it sound like 3 other Asian men might be implicated?
It would have been a federal crime IF it had happened on Federal land.
Had a case down this way a couple of years ago where a guy killed a gal who was going to testify against him in a rape trial and her baby.
It went Federal because she was killed in the state (read Federal) forest.
If he haden't been trespassing and had shot them, then it would be a different story.
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