Posted on 01/08/2007 8:56:22 AM PST by sbMKE
Body of missing hunter was hidden Possible link to man with gunshot wound investigated By MEG JONES mjones@journalsentinel.com Posted: Jan. 7, 2007
Whoever killed a Hmong hunter in a Marinette County public hunting area took pains to conceal the body, the sheriff said Sunday.
Searchers with a tracking dog could not find Cha Vang, 30, Friday night after his hunting companions reported him missing. Shortly after the search resumed Saturday morning, Vang's body was found concealed in the Peshtigo Harbor Wildlife Area, though Marinette County Sheriff James Kanikula declined to say how the body was hidden.
And minutes after authorities learned that Vang had disappeared, local hospital officials reported that a man had arrived in the emergency room with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the hand. Hospitals are required to notify law enforcement of any firearms-related injuries.
It didn't take detectives long to make what they say is a connection between the two shootings. James A. Nichols, 28, of Peshtigo was held on a probation-parole violation after his hand was treated. According to online state court records, Nichols was convicted in Marinette County of several felony burglary charges in 1996.
"We got a missing hunter. We got a guy in the hospital with a gunshot wound to his hand. He showed up a half-hour after we got this call that we've got a missing hunter," said Kanikula, who was sworn in last week.
"The long and short of it is our investigators are sharp. They went to talk to this guy. His story changed three or four times. It's just a matter of good investigation."
Why Vang was killed and whether his death was linked in any way to the deaths in 2004 of six hunters in Sawyer County is unknown. A Hmong hunter from Minnesota, Chai Soua Vang, was convicted of killing the hunters, who were white, during a dispute over hunting on private property.
The killings inflamed racial tensions in Wisconsin among Hmong and white hunters. Chai Vang, 38, a St. Paul, Minn., truck driver who often hunted in northwestern Wisconsin, is now serving multiple life terms. He said he fired in self-defense after being confronted by hunters who owned the Sawyer County property and shouted racial epithets.
When asked if there was any connection between the Sawyer County slayings and the death in Marinette County, Kanikula said "at this time, no. But that's not gospel. I don't have those answers yet.
"What the circumstances are or what caused this incident, we're still sorting through everything."
Vang was hunting for small game at the Peshtigo wildlife area with three companions when he vanished. Kanikula, who previously served as sheriff in the northeastern Wisconsin county, declined to say how many times Vang was shot but said an autopsy was scheduled for today in Green Bay.
Vang's wife said Sunday that he couldn't speak English and could not have provoked such an attack. Pang Vue, 25, said she and her husband and their five children, ages 3 to 11, immigrated to America two years ago and settled in Green Bay. Vang wanted to provide a better life for his family than the one he had growing up in refugee camps in Southeast Asia.
"Our dream was just starting, just now beginning, and now it falls apart again," Vue said through an interpreter as dozens of family members and friends gathered at her home Sunday afternoon.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
How did he obtain a hunting license?
There was never any indication that a shot was fired at Chai Vang and that he was acting in self defence. I've no doubt there were epithets, he'd been thrown off the same piece of private land the year before. And for whatever reason, tresspassed again. Also had skipped a court date for tresspassing in Green County.
Sounds like she was 14 when she had her first child - fairly typical in some parts of the world.
Again, that might not be the case (and another freeper mentioned that he supposedly shot the hunters in their backs), but that is what the article reported as his statement.
And if you didn't read the pings to you on this and the other thread, some of the Vang threads in your link are about the mass killing Vang, not the killed Vang (there are two).
What, are you against cultural diversity or something?
Joke, it's a joke.
Chai Vang hunted several of those people down like prey after he shot his second or third victims. IIRC, four were shot in the BACK.
He was trespassing on private property (posted as such), they told him to leave. There was an argument after that and he killed 6 people and tried to kill the two others who were present.
He had a tape recording of John Kerry asking for a hunting licence.
Sorry for the shorthand nature of my initial comment - from my perspective all of the things I noted in my first post are relevant with this story, in that this incident represents further escalation of a certain culture clash as thousands of refugees resettle in an area that is decidedly not "diverse."
Being born and raised in Green Bay, I can remember some of the earliest stories about Laotian/Hmong immigration into the area. Relatively innocuous stories about "rustic" virtues not quite making smooth transitions to "civilization" abounded -- families growing crops in homes, flooded basement carp ponds, families on hands and knees picking nightcrawlers on athletic fields at night, etc.
As the Hmong population continued to grow, some ugly trends started to develop in the area as well. Drug traffic courtesy of Minneapolis-Green Bay Asian gang connections with associated stabbings, shootings, and beatings made local headlines. Newcomers with guns didn't play well at home and negative generalizations were made.
"Honor" has been a theme as well in reporting of the Vang incident as well as some other ugly domestic abuse cases involving Hmong males. In those stories, violence escalates in proportion to honor to be regained or protected.
As for nativism and immigration - Green Bay's an awefully small town. At least from my perspective the neighborhoods and social circles are very stable and tightly connected. Very different from Milwaukee and Madison which seem much more transient. Introduce a few thousand refugees with subsistence farming backgrounds into the mix and tensions and biases rise in decidedly un-PC ways.
Again, I think I'm being very brief with this reply, but there's a whole lot of potential for greater tension and escalation here from my perspective. And the fact that there are large language and cultural obstacles at play and I think you have an immigration situation that is arguably much more complex than many others that are getting attention on this site.
This stuff depresses me, but there's black on black and black on white and white on black or any combination of Hispanic, Jamaican, ME, etc. crime every d@mn day in Milwaukee which never gets this kind of coverage. Evil, reckless people come in all colors and stripes.
The papers are only springboarding off the Chai Vang murders of year before last, sympathetic to poachers and illegals or illegal gun owners as usual, while taking their swipes at honest, legal gun-owning, licensed hunters. Oh, those EVIL, EVIL guns! Look for more gun-grabbin' in this second term (which I prefer to think of as a "sentence" for Wisconsin Taxpayers) of Doyle & Crew. *Rolleyes*
Sells papers, I guess. *SHRUG*
A friend of ours left S. Dakota (Hormel) and took a job in Milwaukee (a cop) hoping to get away from the Mexican problems. Big mistake they claim.
There is also a perception that Chai Vang, had a hunting partner and that they were possibly responsible for shooting another hunter in 2001. Not sure if this theory was ever proven further, but it does set up a uneasy dynamic in that there is the spectre a killer, of specific descent, in the midst during hunting season.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/10267284.htm
Clark County sheriff's deputy said last weekend's shootings had vague similarities to the death three years ago of Jim Southworth, 37, of Medford, Wis. Southworth's body was found on family land Nov. 24, 2001, a day after he had gone deer hunting by himself.
"We're not considering Mr. Vang a suspect. We're considering him a possible witness," said Chief Deputy Jim Backus of the Clark County Sheriff's Department in Neillsville.
Hmmmm....interesting. I had not heard about that story. The way he hunted those people down in such a cold and calculated way and the fact that he showed no remorse whatsoever makes me wonder.
I think the thing that makes this story more notable, outside of Milwaukee's daily murder roll, is that someone was likely innocent. It was either a straight up shooting of a hunter or a case of self-defense. Although the hidden body raises ample doubt on the latter possibility.
I really try to avoid Milwaukee's gun crime stories, but it does seem that the vast majority involve drugs, night club fights, gang fights or any number of occupational hazards associated with the lifestyle of the shooters/victims. Bad folks shooting bad folks really doesn't have much larger context aside from macro factors.
Yep. Plenty of M-13 gang bangers there to keep your friend busy. ;)
I weep for what a great city Milwaukee used to be. I grew up there. Socialism has eaten the heart and soul out of that great city, as it does to any that it touches.
Relative to self defense, I think you were referring to Chai Vang, the convicted murderer. That claim came along very late, perhaps as late as his trial, and wasn't raised in his confession, where he indicated he was reacting to racial epithets. Other than the two or three hunters who initially confronted him for tresspassing, his other victims weren't armed and as I recall two were shot in the back. They had heard shots, and assuming a member of their party had taken a deer, hopped on atvs and went to the site unarmed, whereupon Vang opened fire on them. I believe there was a single shot fired by one of the initial armed victims. There were a two survivors, wounded, if I recall.
From your, and other freepers', sources, it does seem that that Vang did murder those men rather than defend himself.
That's why it's characterized as a racial incident.
I've heard enough comments from other freepers re Hmong, particularly in the urban areas, to know it's a problem, though I haven't really seen it. There was a similar killing on public, maybe forest company, land in northern Adams Co about the same time as the 2001 incident you mentioned. Single shot in back, attributed to a stray shot, but who knows. There was a request for any information/witnesses after the Vang incident, but nothing turned up.
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