Vang jury will be chosen in Dane County
(AP) - The jury in a trial for a man accused of killing six deer hunters in the Wisconsin northwoods last November will be selected from Dane County instead of Sawyer County where the shootings happened, the judge in the case ruled Thursday.
Sawyer County Circuit Judge Norman L. Yackel issued a one-sentence ruling siding with attorneys for Chai Soua Vang, 36, who had argued that publicity and strong emotions in northwest Wisconsin would make it hard for him to receive a fair trial there.
Yackel ruled last week that the trial would be held in Sawyer County, about 50 miles from the Rice Lake, where the victims lived. Dane County is in the southern part of the state and includes Madison, which is about 220 miles southeast of Hayward.
Vang has pleaded not guilty to six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted first-degree homicide in a confrontation over trespassing Nov. 21 in some isolated Sawyer County woods. His trial is set to start Sept. 12.
Vang, a truck driver from St. Paul, Minn., is a Hmong immigrant. Vang's attorneys had argued that the shooting sparked anti-Hmong sentiment in the area.
Here is a other recent article:
Chai Vang tells of confrontation in woods
Larry Oakes, Star Tribune
June 10, 2005 VANG0610
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HAYWARD, WIS. -- Chai Vang told a reporter in a phone call from jail that he felt sorry about shooting some of the hunters he is accused of killing but that others deserved to be shot, because they called him racist names and threatened him, according to a transcript of the conversation.
In a letter sent from the Sawyer County jail to the same Chicago Tribune reporter, Vang sought to justify the six killings on Nov. 21, 2004, in the northern Wisconsin woods, saying he was trying to "defend myself and my race" after the hunters confronted him for trespassing.
"I feel that this incident is happen because people are not able to [treat] others with respect like they wanted to be treated, and [because of] hatred toward other people or race," Vang, 36, of St. Paul, wrote in a letter dated March 8.
Vang has claimed that the white hunters from the Rice Lake, Wis., area called him "gook" and "chink," and that one of the hunters fired a shot his way, prompting him to open fire on them.
His account conflicts with what survivors told investigators -- that Vang fired first.
Vang has admitted shooting several hunters who were unarmed and some who were running away.
Letters and the phone call transcript were filed Thursday in Sawyer County Circuit Court, a day after the Wisconsin attorney general asked that they be admitted as evidence in Vang's trial on charges that he murdered six hunters and wounded two others.
Vang has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial starting Sept. 12.
Jail officials testified at a pretrial hearing Wednesday that inmate letters and phone calls are monitored, and that they gave the prosecution copies of Vang's communications with Colleen Mastony of the Chicago Tribune.
Although six reporters wrote to Vang requesting interviews, he apparently responded only to Mastony, after she told him in a March 1 letter that she had been working for three months on a detailed account of his life and the shootings in northwestern Wisconsin.
Mastony explained that she had already talked with his wife, mother, siblings, ex-wives and other family members.
"I want to write a story that shows the public who you are as a husband, father, a son and a brother," she wrote to Vang.
Hanke Gratteau, the Chicago Tribune's associate managing editor for metropolitan news, said Thursday that Mastony's story has yet to be published and that a date for publication has not been set.
The essential details of Vang's account to her of the shootings were the same as his most recent interview with investigators (at first, Vang denied to investigators that he had killed anyone).
But, in response to Mastony's questions, Vang gave more background about his life as a Hmong immigrant, and more details than previously disclosed of the days and hours leading up to the deadly confrontation near Exeland, Wis.
Vang told Mastony that he had also hunted in that area in 2001 and 2002, and he noted a run-in with white hunters in 2001, who used racial epithets and falsely accused him of taking a deer illegally.
But the hunting was good there, so he returned last fall, accompanied by four friends and some of their sons. He wrote that just before waking up on the day of the shootings, he had a prophetic dream in which he was back in the jungles of Laos and got into a gun battle with some Vietnamese soldiers.
"I shot most of them," he wrote, "and some escape to get help." He dreamed he was then caught and taken prisoner.
"I almost didn't want to go hunt that day because I never have that kind of dream in my life," he wrote.
That day, he got lost following a deer and wandered onto the property where the shootings happened. He said he thought he was on public land and didn't mean to trespass.
After Vang described the shootings as self-defense, Mastony pressed him during their phone conversation, asking: "Why ... when the men ran, did you keep shooting?"
Vang replied: "Well, I thought he just going [to] run in, get gun, and get help and come after me."
As he walked through the woods after the shootings, he wrote, "I [thought] to myself and said sorry to my wife and family that I have done something to defend myself and my race," and he worried that he might not see them again.
He wrote that, "My life in jail here is long days/nights ... like I live in a bad dream only and worry about my wife and family all the time."
Larry Oakes is at loakes@startribune.com.
