This artical is posted for reading only no replies will be taken.
From the Outdoor News Nov 26, 2004
‘He hunted them down is what he did’
Sixth person dies from Wisconsin shootings
By Dean Bortz
Staff Writer
Hayward, Wis. — One of three hunters wounded in the Nov. 21 Sawyer County massacre died on Tuesday, Nov. 23, bringing the death toll to six people in the case.
The suspect, Chai Soua Vang, 36, of St. Paul, Minn., remained in custody in Sawyer County Jail as of Tuesday, Nov. 23.
Doug Drew, 55, of Rice Lake, died on Tuesday from wounds suffered during the shooting. The five hunters who died at the scene were Robert Crotteau, 42; his son Joe Crotteau, 20; Al Laski, 43; Mark Roidt, 28; and Jessica Willers, 27. All are from the Rice Lake area. Willers is the daughter of Terry Willers, who was wounded. Also wounded was Lauren Hesebeck.
Vang was apprehended at about 5:20 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 21 when he came out of the woods riding on the back of an ATV driven by a hunter who did not know that Vang was a suspect in a shooting spree that initially killed five hunters and wounded three others earlier that day. Vang allegedly fired upon mostly unarmed hunters who approached Vang when they found him sitting in a deer stand on private property.
Investigators were still trying to piece together exactly what happened that day, according to Mike Bartz, Wisconsin DNR Northern Region regional warden. Bartz worked at the crime scene with Sawyer County investigators and other law enforcement officials.
Questions remain as to how Vang came to be in this remote area of southwestern Sawyer County, just west of the small town of Exeland. The shootings occurred in the township of Meteor on private land that is adjacent to county-owned forest land. According to Bartz, law enforcement officers were not able to find a vehicle that might have been used by Vang to drive to Sawyer County from his home in St. Paul.
That leads investigators to believe that Vang was hunting with friends, and perhaps arrived with those friends, but no hunters who knew Vang were found in the area.
Ever since the shootings were first reported, it’s been wondered how Vang could have allegedly shot eight other hunters, six fatally, without taking fire himself.
“Of the eight people who were in the area, there was only one firearm among them,” Bartz said. “There is not a clear understanding of how the people were shot. There were multiple people there, but most were not armed.”
Bartz said there were about 14 or 15 people at the hunting camp. Most news reports are indicating that two people initially approached Vang when they realized that someone who was not part of their hunting group was occupying one of their tree stands.
Apparently, the hunter who first saw Vang went to the cabin to ask members of the group if they knew whether one of their hunters was going to be in that stand. When the answer came back negative, apparently two unarmed hunters walked to that stand to talk to Vang.
“As far as we know, they confronted the guy and, for whatever reason, he started shooting,” Bartz said.
The Associated Press quoted Sawyer County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle as saying it was not known who shot first. On Tuesday, according to multiple news reports, investigators said that Vang was maintaining that the other hunters shot at him first.
Zeigle said the suspect, Vang, was “chasing after them and killing them,” with a SKS 7.62-caliber semiautomatic, a common hunting weapon.
“He hunted them down is what he did,” Zeigle said.
It’s not exactly clear just how the group obtained Vang’s backtag number, but Bartz said one of the first two hunters, after he was wounded, wrote Vang’s backtag number into the dust on the fender of an ATV. “We also believe that one person who may have been wounded called on a two-way radio (back to the cabin), and more (hunters from the cabin) came (to the stand area) and were subsequently fired upon. Not clear on how many people were present, nor the sequence,” Bartz said.
It’s also believed that Vang’s backtag number might have been relayed to the cabin via two-way radio, or memorized by one of the wounded hunters. But, with that number, law enforcement officers knew who they were looking for. They also knew what kind of vehicle Vang owned, and where he lived.
It’s not clear, at this point, whether the member of the hunting group who was armed was able to fire at Vang. Bartz said it’s believed that a couple of shots were fired.
“It’s not clear on how emergency personnel were notified,” Bartz said. “There was one cell phone, but coverage was poor. Apparently one person did get signal and attempted to call 911.”
Bartz said members of the hunting party who were not injured also started transporting wounded hunters to the hospital and were able to get cell coverage at some point. They also were met by the Birchwood First Responders, who had communication abilities.
The cabin can be reached by a poor forest road that can only be traversed by four-wheel drive vehicles. Later in the day, DNR wardens used their trucks to ferry in local investigators and members of the Department of Justice crime lab from Wausau.
Law enforcement officers set up a perimeter around the entire area, with officers from multiple jurisdictions involved. Sheriff’s departments from Sawyer, Barron, Washburn, and Rusk counties were involved, as were 13 DNR conservation wardens, Wisconsin State Patrol officers, Lac Courte Oreille Indian Reservation game wardens, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission game wardens, and members of local police departments.
Some officers closed the perimeter while others went into the area to search for Vang while also looking for witnesses and evidence. They also talked to other hunters and suggested they leave, once it was confirmed they were not linked to Vang.
Most news reports have said Vang became lost in the woods before and after the shootings, and he was apprehended when he came out of the woods after dark on the back of an ATV driven by a hunter who was not aware of what had occurred. However, Bartz said that DNR conservation warden Jeremy Peery, who apprehended Vang, had talked to the ATV operator. That hunter said that when he found Vang and offered him a ride, Vang wanted him to go in a different direction.
“The driver said, ‘No, if you want to get out, we have to go this way.’ It’s probably a good thing, at that point, that he (Vang) was out of ammunition,” Bartz said.
Vang accepted the ride. When the ATV reached the road, the operator must have seen Peery and drove over to him, and said, “This guy is lost. Can you help him?”
Bartz said Peery turned on his flashlight, saw that Vang fit the description of the suspect, checked his identification, then took him into custody.
“It’s fortunate that, early on, the landowners had gotten the backtag number. We were able to identify him and vehicles registered to him, where he lived, and that proved to be valuable information,” Bartz said. “As horrible as this whole thing was, I was relieved that it ended as it did. We did not have another shoot-out, (the suspect) did not shoot himself, nor did he slip out of there.”
Vang had with him an SKS semi-automatic rifle chambered in 7.62 x 39 mm, which Bartz described as being similar in ballistics to a .30-30.
Vang was scheduled for a probable cause hearing on Tuesday, Nov. 23, in Sawyer County. A judge set bail at $2.5 million on Tuesday based on probable cause documents that investigators filed in the case. It was decided on Monday, Nov. 22, that the Wisconsin Attorney General’s office would prosecute the case, with assistance from the Sawyer County district attorney.
Bartz worked on the scene, which he described as being very disturbing. He said Barron County Sheriff Tom Ritchie knew most of the members of the hunting party, who were from the Ladysmith area, the county seat of Barron County. Bartz said Ritchie did a good job with the difficult task of talking to family members and getting them to safety.
The Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department requested that Department of Justice (DOJ) crime scene investigators come in from Wausau. That team did what forensic work they could that night, then finished the next day.
“We were taking measurements, trying to figure out what happened. We recovered physical evidence, including slugs and casings from firearms. The witnesses who survived said there was just one shooter,” Bartz said.
DNR pilots flew fixed-wing aircraft during Sunday’s search. Minnesota State Patrol sent over a helicopter fitted with an infrared device for a night search, but the suspect was taken into custody just as the helicopter arrived. DNR pilots went back up the next morning to shoot aerial photos of the area for the DOJ crime team.
Hunter Bill Wagner, 72, was about two miles away near Deer Lake with a party of about 20 other hunters when they heard sirens, planes, and helicopters and discovered roads in the area had been barricaded.
“When you’re hunting, you don’t expect somebody to try to shoot you and murder you,” Wagner said. “You have no idea who is coming up to you.”
“We’re all old, dyed-in-wool hunters,” he said. “We wouldn’t go home because of this, but we will keep it in our minds. We’re not forgetting it.”
Wisconsin’s statewide deer gun hunting season started Saturday and lasts for nine days.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.