WE decided that we will approach tresspassers differently than we had traditionally done.
I cannot believe it has been 13 years already - My God. Those poor families I'm sure think it's like yesterday. Such a tragic event.
Clark County Sheriff's Office still has an open case on a gun hunter that was shot and found lying never his stand. I believe his rifle was stolen as well. It's being treated as a homicide and still remains unsolved.
Honor to the war hero's who both fought and died at Tarawa. Let them never be forgotten.
We as a Nation and I as an individual have so much to be grateful for!
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.
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.
