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Season Seven: Hunters Among Us: Part Two: Deserved to Die
146 Plays6 days ago
In this episode, we start talking about a series of terrifying cases involving a community in Wisconsin.
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:00:56
Speaker
So you may notice there's a couple of parts in the feed. ah This
Series Continuation and Previous Episode
00:01:00
Speaker
is part two. You may want to go back and listen to part one. you don't have to. The stories are mostly independent, but they show kind of how we got here, looking at the cases that we're looking at.
00:01:09
Speaker
But if you haven't listened to the E.E. Lee case, that's part one of this. And then this is part two.
Kai Swagvage's Early Life and Immigration
00:01:16
Speaker
There's a young man ah born in Laos in six children of
00:01:23
Speaker
he is one of six children and it like in his family, his dad, by all reports, appears to work for the American government during the Vietnam war 1975.
00:01:40
Speaker
At the end of the Laotian civil war, this kid is going to spend the rest of childhood in a refugee camp in Thailand by 1980.
00:01:53
Speaker
They relocate to the United States and they settle in St. Paul, Minnesota. So they end up at one point there Stockton, California.
00:02:05
Speaker
And in his teens, ah this kid's a paper delivery boy by 1985 or so. I think during high school, they joined the California Cadet Corps.
00:02:18
Speaker
They found a Hmong student association. And they're going to graduate in 1987 and work as a social service worker for refugees.
00:02:32
Speaker
By the age of 21, they joined the California National Guard as part of the 236th Medical Brigade. they're going to get met He's going to get medals and he's going to work as a truck driver in Sacramento following his discharge in 1995.
00:02:49
Speaker
One of the medals is good conduct. One of the medals that's pointed out in these proceedings is a sharpshooter badge.
Family Life and Legal Troubles
00:02:55
Speaker
By 1999, and I'll go ahead and name him. His name is ah Kai Swagvage.
00:03:04
Speaker
It's spelled C-H-I-S-O-U-A-V-A-N-G. Kai Swagvage. v a n g hi gets an associate's degree, operates a long haul trucking service.
00:03:16
Speaker
And in 2000, they moved back to St. Paul, Minnesota. They take a delivery job. He takes a delivery job up there. He has seven kids and he is considered the family shaman.
00:03:28
Speaker
Basically, there's a spiritual side to it but think if every family had an EMT is how we're politely going to address that.
00:03:40
Speaker
On Christmas Eve of 2001, police respond to a 911 call from Kai's house. This is according to the Minneapolis Police Department. There's a quarrel there where he wants to go out and his wife, say, doesn't want him to leave.
00:03:57
Speaker
His daughter recalls running out of the room and her father, who is a pretty avid hunter at this point, and obviously he was a sharpshooter in the California National Guard,
00:04:09
Speaker
ah She sees her father with a gun. So they arrest Kai. They don't file charges because Say doesn't cooperate with the investigators trying to help her.
00:04:20
Speaker
And a few months later, Say moves with ah at least five of the kids. And depending on like where you fall in this story, I think they have five and then two kids with a new wife maybe is how this goes.
00:04:37
Speaker
But she moves to Wisconsin with her parents because that's where this community that we were talking about is pretty prevalent. So they live up in Milwaukee. Kai gets married again, doesn't last very long.
00:04:50
Speaker
The new wife, according to his story, she gambles a lot and he nearly chokes her to death. By 2004, he's remarried again.
The Hunting Incident
00:05:04
Speaker
But where he comes into being a story that we're going to cover is November of 2004. November 21st, 2004 is is a time that a lot of people go hunting, including Kai Beige.
00:05:20
Speaker
On the weekend of the shootings, Kai goes out deer hunting. He's got a couple of friends and to so two sons of the friends are with them. They're out in Northwest Wisconsin.
00:05:32
Speaker
This is an area that apparently, like White-tailed deer hunting is very popular. It's around the town of Meteor, Wisconsin. Meteor is a huge town, not as many people.
00:05:44
Speaker
The land in this area is a mix of game lands that are owned privately and then state land. um I think there's even some county land in here.
00:05:55
Speaker
it is believed that they start out on state land, but somehow Kai ends up on a set of private acres. And that's because there's questions about what actually ended up happening.
00:06:07
Speaker
There's a hunting party at a cabin on this private land of 400 or so acres. And on Sunday, November 21st, there's about 15 people there. Terry Willers is one of the co-owners of the land.
00:06:22
Speaker
He leaves the cabin and he sees Kai sitting up in a deer stand. So he's got a little handheld radio. He asks back over the radio to the people in the cabin whether or not anyone should be in that particular deer stand.
00:06:42
Speaker
They basically come back and say, no there's nobody out there. All of our party is here or in their appropriate place. Nobody would be down that way. So Terry goes over to Kai and says, hey, you got to leave.
00:06:57
Speaker
Now, Depending on which story you believe, there might be some racial slurs involved. Kai apologizes to the folks that are part of this hunting party that are confronting him, specifically Terry.
00:07:15
Speaker
And he starts moving south, and he is going...
00:07:21
Speaker
to, it's not a road, but it looks like a big utility trail that lead that would lead him out of the 400 acres kind of back to where he came from. According to Terry Willard's testimony, he says, as Bob got back on the radio and asked me where he was at, I said he's down on the food plot right now.
00:07:42
Speaker
And I radioed into the cabin that I had a quote unquote tree rat and I had chased him off. At this point, five of the hunters from the cabin hear what's going on on the radio. They come down to the tree stand.
00:07:58
Speaker
According to testimony from Lauren Hessebeck, they state that Bob had said, I'm going to go talk to him to find out who he is, why he's there, and then make sure he doesn't, you know, I want him to know that he's on private property. He's not welcome here.
00:08:13
Speaker
Denny had said to me that this ought to be interesting. Let's go and see what's going on So we all got in the back of, they have like this ATV that has a little roll cage on it.
00:08:26
Speaker
Multiple people get into it. And there's a couple of them that are standing up and kind of hanging on to it. So they get directions from Terry Willers and this group goes down to approach Kai further down the trail One of the people that's involved here suggested making a note of his hunting license number and to make a report to DNR, which is the Department of Natural Resources. They oversee the licensing.
00:08:52
Speaker
According to Lauren's testimony, they approach Kai and they flip the hunting tag over to get the license number.
00:09:03
Speaker
I think they wear them there, like on their body. That's the impression i got. i felt like that wasn't necessarily appropriate, but it wasn't the worst thing somebody could do. Right. And so I'm trying to give it in like a pretty neutral regard here. Um, this hunting party, like this is the physical people from the larger group that are approaching Kai. It's made up of Robert James, who goes by Bob Croteau, uh, Joseph G. Croteau, goes by Joey.
00:09:42
Speaker
Um, Bob is 42. Joey is 20. guy named Alan Lasky is with them. a guy named Mark Rolt, who's 28. Alan's 43. Mark is 28. They have a woman named Jessica Marie Willers, who's 27. And a guy named Denny. His name is Dennis Robert Drew. He's 55. And then Lauren Hessebeck is 48.
00:10:05
Speaker
And Terry Willers is 47. So we have eyewitnesses to what I'm going to describe next, but we have differing accounts of all of this.
00:10:16
Speaker
And essentially where we, where you just left off was that the hunting tag that ah he was wearing had been flipped over so they could get his license number.
00:10:28
Speaker
Right. So this is, this is, this becomes a confrontation where they want to identify him and make a report. And, depending on who you believe here, they're maybe not using the nice nicest language and this confrontation gets violent very quickly.
00:10:45
Speaker
There's some dispute to like how violent and how quickly, but I'm going to lay out what's in summary. According to everybody at the scene,
00:10:56
Speaker
and I think I'll come back around to to Kai, but um according to everybody at the scene, Gunshots break out, which we know are true because we have projectiles and we have people hit by these gunshots.
00:11:11
Speaker
It is believed that Kai fires 20 rounds. The rifles were covered by police. He really messes them up.
00:11:25
Speaker
So according to the investigation, he's raising the rifle up and he is sweeping, circling, He fires at Terry Willers.
00:11:36
Speaker
According to Kai's testimonies, he felt like if he didn't shoot Terry, Terry was going to shoot him.
00:11:45
Speaker
His first shot misses Willers. Terry runs away. he dies for cover, but he lands on his rifle. He can't roll over.
00:11:58
Speaker
So Kai's second shot hits him in his lower left neck. And that keeps him on the ground. By this point, everybody's panicking because now we have gunshots in the woods.
00:12:13
Speaker
Right. And I just want to point out, i I'm not sure if you can obviously tell me if i've miss um if I'm wrong, but this started with him raising the rifle and kneeling Yes, that is correct. And he kneels and like he basically moves into a sharpshooter's position based on everybody's testimony. It's insane. And I wondered what.
00:12:43
Speaker
How threatening were they to him that he felt like he needed to do that? Well, and then, like, what did they think when that was happening? Because that would have been crazy. and you know, he did say, if I don't shoot him, he would shoot me. And my initial response is, like, that's not typically the response you're going to have when you need to use self-defense to kneel down and aim. Correct.
00:13:09
Speaker
Okay. Because he was still, i imagine, sort of right in the middle of all them. Right. Okay. Yes. And they know they're they are scattering away from him at this point.
00:13:25
Speaker
And that's going to really hurt Kai's case later. But once he hits Terry Willers, he turns on the men who are on their ATVs, these ATVs I was talking about that they piled in on.
00:13:40
Speaker
So he shoots Mark Royt. And he, Mark Royt, by all accounts, including the medical examiner, um he is gonna die instantly.
00:13:53
Speaker
He actually is gonna fall off the ATV in a way that it's gonna keep moving. And according to what I read, it was a single headshot that Mark is hit with. So he's got the ATV kind of slowly moving down the trail. Kai then turns and he shoots Denny.
00:14:17
Speaker
And that shot, i don't I don't know exactly where the shot lands. I got the impression it was some kind of neck shot, but whatever it was, it kills Denny.
00:14:29
Speaker
And then the Bob and Joey, the, I think their father's son, the way this read out, they are, the proto they, so Bob and Joey, they flee.
00:14:42
Speaker
And at this point, He fires three shots at Lauren Hessebeck. And like, I've read accounts that Hessebeck is like close to the other ATV or the same ATV. And that Kai has to get up and move towards him shooting him.
00:15:07
Speaker
And it says that the the third round had partially disemboweled Hessebeck. And at that point they fell and laid still. Bob had fled and called back to the cabin on a walkie talkie telling Lasky who's Alan James Lasky to come to bring guns and to help, which sounds like a terrible idea.
00:15:31
Speaker
um Kai's first shot misses him, but the second shot hits and kills Bob as he's fleeing and calling for assistance. Terry remained down, but he's gotten some feeling back in his fingers.
00:15:46
Speaker
He ends up being able to call to the cabin for help. And as he's calling the cabin for help, Kai has turned his attention away from Bob and has moved to the younger Croteau who is fleeing down a trail.
00:16:02
Speaker
And kai sprints to cut him off. He closes the gap and he shoots him in the lower back. It's a long shot from what I read.
00:16:13
Speaker
I don't know that it's exactly 200 feet, but it's about 200 feet away. he then reloads, he approaches him, Joey is either trying to get away or trying to figure out what to do, and ha shoots him again.
00:16:29
Speaker
He closes in on him, and he's going to shoot him two more times from behind. And so I've heard that the kill shots were four shots to the center of his body and that he shot him the final time in the back of his head.
00:16:45
Speaker
So now Kai flips his blaze orange hunting coat. So like you wear like visible colors so that other hunters know you're there.
00:16:57
Speaker
Sometimes those are reversible and the inside of Kai's blaze orange hunting coat is camouflage. So he he is now camouflaged.
00:17:09
Speaker
He's able to hide at a turn of the trail. he hears the other ATV approaching and he thinks the people on the ATV are going to be armed because of like what's been like what he's been able to hear in the chaos.
00:17:27
Speaker
So on this ATV, we have Alan Lasky and Jessica Willers. So Jessica is Terry's daughter.
00:17:39
Speaker
He waits until they go past and he fires at them. He hits Jessica once in her left buttock area. he hits Lasky his back and shatters his lower spine.
00:17:57
Speaker
He then runs over, shoots Lasky in the back. He steps behind Jessica Willers, and I've heard this called center mass, but what the description that stuck with me was, he shoots her in the center of the back of her neck.
00:18:17
Speaker
He then goes back to where the shooting started to pick up a scope that was not on his gun at the time. And as he gets closer to that area, Lauren Hassovac and Kai bang.
00:18:33
Speaker
They get into each other's territory. Kai says, you're not dead yet? Raises the rifle and is about to shoot Lorne Hessebeck, who grabs Terry Willer's rifle with his right hand.
00:18:52
Speaker
He dives for cover, and those shots miss Lorne Hessebeck. So Hessebeck can't point or aim the rifle because of a wound to the left arm.
00:19:08
Speaker
or I think it's the shoulder specifically, but I can't tell who had the shoulder wound and who had the the neck wound between Terry and Lauren, but the bottom line is these are two survivors.
00:19:20
Speaker
They're able to shoot back or try to shoot back. I think at one point Hezebek turns to fire and the goes to pull the trigger and the safety's still engaged. It's not his rifle. He is taking it from someone laying nearby.
00:19:34
Speaker
He drags this rifle their body. Like you're trying to figure out where on the rifle the safety is. And he's able to take the safety off.
00:19:46
Speaker
He points it again and fires. And he then hears the click of Kai's rifle. And he realizes Kai has to now reload. He's out bullets.
00:19:58
Speaker
Kai flees at this point. He throws what remaining ammunition he had away. in a statement later on, he says he didn't want to shoot anyone else. He ends up finding another hunter who is riding an ATV completely unrelated to all of this. And that hunter gives him a ride, taking him back to the cabin where he was.
00:20:14
Speaker
ah when he arrests when When he arrives at this cabin about five hours after the shooting, they're going to arrest Kaivet. And an officer is going to place him into custody.
00:20:26
Speaker
They transport him to the Sawyer County Jail.
Arrest and Legal Proceedings
00:20:28
Speaker
And he's going to be heldil held here on two and a half million dollars bail. This is a disaster. It is a complete disaster. And according to the investigation into this, about why this became such a disaster so quickly, including comments from the survivors, because remember, Terry and Lauren survived, and obviously Kai was there.
00:20:55
Speaker
According to Kai's statement, Terry Willers took the first shot at him from 100 feet away, and he is going to stand by the idea that all of this nonsense and chaos was in self-defense.
00:21:12
Speaker
According to the trial court, there's no... So there's no shell casing ever recovered from Terry Willard's gun, even though during the trial, Lauren Hessebeck admits to firing a single shot later on during the incident when Vang noticed when with Kai, when Kai noticed that Lauren was still alive, fired him and firing at him again. So...
00:21:33
Speaker
so According to Lauren's testimony, no shot was fired before Kai started shooting. Which I believe. Well, it it but it it appears to bear out a trial.
00:21:48
Speaker
So, like, there's not much of a question of it. Well, because if you think about where they're at, which we get a very, um like, i have to add a lot of my...
00:22:02
Speaker
mental picture painting to this because like and which I guess would make it speculation but I always try to use the facts yeah we're in a situation where they are on private land that they know abuts public land Right? Yeah. Right.
00:22:23
Speaker
right Okay. So ah if you recall, at one point, someone gets on the radio and tells the people that are back at the house to come and bring guns. And yeah I believe you said, like, that's a terrible idea. But it makes me think, like, there was no part of this that was supposed to be confrontational to this degree. Right.
00:22:50
Speaker
right Oh, I don't think they showed up to shoot this guy at all no No, not at all. they now okay, there's a few things to think about as far as the initial situation where you've got somebody who is out ah outside of where they're staying and they see somebody that's not part of their group.
00:23:14
Speaker
they say, hey, is anybody supposed to be there? And the consensus is no, so they ask him to leave. Now, i think it's entirely possible that Kai had no idea he was on someone's property. Yeah.
00:23:31
Speaker
I think that it could have, especially if he was under the impression that it was ah the public property. i guess it's public property, right?
00:23:45
Speaker
Is that right? there there he is So the tree stand this all starts out is private land. Okay, but there is public... is closed to state game land, yes. Okay, that's what I mean. And so I feel like he... okay and I could be wrong. I feel like he thought ah there was unearned sense of entitlement from...
00:24:13
Speaker
these people that he had this confrontation with where he thought they were trying to claim the public land for their use.
00:24:25
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. and that's like the first miscommunication that occurs. Um, because, ah I did not know that there was a problem with ah any sort of, like I guess, racial disparity.
00:24:49
Speaker
i'm not even sure that that's what's happening here as much as maybe there's some misunderstanding. This guy clearly speaks English. Well, I wondered if ah he might have a bit of a chip on his shoulder um and assumed that like if he said, oh, they think they're entitled to tell me what part of the public land I can and can't use, even though they're not saying that they're saying like, this is private land. You've got to go to the public land. Right. Yeah. um
00:25:31
Speaker
I think that he could have interpreted a bias that wasn't even there. Now he says, uh,
00:25:41
Speaker
Terry Willers is who initially confronts him and he survives. And I don't know if he, I'm sure he testified, I don't know if he said, yeah, i called him like slur words or whatever.
00:25:55
Speaker
But we don't know what happened, right? Right. And it really doesn't matter because there's a lot of things about being on hunting land you're not supposed to be on that is inherently dangerous. I'm not saying that it gives you the right to slur at someone, but like there's a lot of reasons to make sure people understand like don't be here, right? They could be shot, right?
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And I feel like a lot of... i think that he grew up in um an echo chamber. that Because, you know, he you said earlier um when you were going through kind of like his ah immigration to the United States and how he founded like... I i don't know. Mon-American group, yeah. The Association of Mon-American. Yeah. And he... so he he's on the, at least the offensive, which could be just being proactive about the culture he belongs to, right? But it's almost like that echo chamber did not serve him well. And he saw things that while it made no difference, what
00:27:19
Speaker
ah His race or nationality was it The people would have told anybody they saw there to to leave. Right. Yeah.
00:27:30
Speaker
And I think that he could have been skewed ever so slightly to get really enraged because he had some sort of experience at some point or another that that contributed to that.
00:27:46
Speaker
Or I thought maybe like his, I don't know what the interactions were like for him ah with how his family was treated, and it might have even just been a perception from, like, his parents, like, because they experienced ah the immigration the way that they did, they didn't want to...
00:28:13
Speaker
Like it wasn't that they were actually being, you know, discriminated against. They just, maybe they were grateful they were able to to escape and they didn't want to seem burdensome, right? And the kids took that the wrong way.
00:28:36
Speaker
What do you mean the kids? Well, his family and like i mean his generation and the family? Yeah. I see what you're saying. i think his kids, though.
00:28:49
Speaker
Not his kids. Him and his siblings. Okay. Because what I'm trying to get at here is I feel like he's saying, like, I was the victim of a racial, like, hate crime, basically.
00:29:06
Speaker
I mean, that's what i'm saying, right? It kind of goes down that path, and then it becomes like more of an excuse to explain the situation. well because what he did is bonkers.
00:29:18
Speaker
Right. yeah on On any level, which, like, when it comes when it comes time for, like, the trial, so, okay, so the the trial gets going and they they talk about certain parts of this, there's clearly some animosity between the people involved, but not to the level that, like, we suddenly kill people.
00:29:37
Speaker
multiple hunters in the woods. You know what When you're standing like on your ATV or whatever, you and your group have confronted ah a trespasser. Right. And said, you know, you can't be here and perhaps pointed a way that they should go to get back on the public hunting land. Right. Well, even just found them leave, they got there somehow.
00:30:07
Speaker
Well, right. and But I'm saying, like, so you're standing there. This is what happens. You're like, okay, so, yeah, these are our tree stands. And, you know, for your own safety, like, you can't trespass here and use it to hunt. Right, right. and then the man who's who you just said that to like points his gun and kneels down and in a sweeping motion, like that's something that you can't really get from all the chaos, but it was sort of in a orderly fashion that he swept with his gun around, you know, and was shooting.
00:30:47
Speaker
yeah Yeah. He was, he was shooting, sighting, shooting, sighting. I mean, he was, it was almost described as kind of clinical, And it was insane. I think that the the reason that most of them were shot and killed was because it was so far out of the realm of what they could have imagined was about to happen that they didn't even have a chance to process it.
00:31:17
Speaker
yeah Because when you're having a civilized conversation with anybody about anything, even in hunting, like even at a hunting lodge, you don't think it's going to turn into a gun a one-sided gunfight.
00:31:34
Speaker
Right. And that's exactly what happened. Yeah. So this has become a one-sided gunfight. And the only thing we ever hear out of this that's like,
00:31:46
Speaker
I think it's still in dispute, but we we get pretty clear in convincing evidence that he was at least called an asshole or maybe a Hmong asshole referencing his race. um Well, no believe that was actually, I mean, not the Hmong part, but I believe he was an asshole. He shot all those people. Oh, yeah. big It's not wrong.
00:32:06
Speaker
um But I think that's like kind of as far as we I don't know if there was more racial things said. I'm not saying that it doesn't matter either way. It's not. right That's where I'm headed. Yeah. Like, i like like, you know, six.
00:32:19
Speaker
So if five people die at the scene. One dies later on. so we get six people dead, two people wounded on top of that. This is like overkill. Um, it's really presented as like a defense.
00:32:34
Speaker
They try and like, there's a lot of stuff that gets thrown out. I did not know there were so many different weird things that you could call people in Wisconsin that are specific to Wisconsin. I, I, yeah, I see. I feel like all of that is only relevant to people who are in Wisconsin. I don't think, I don't think it's really a thing to anybody else.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, and apparently Bob Cruto had and had problems with trespassers out here. We're going to find that out at the trial. that There was apparently a thing where people from Wisconsin and Minnesota, like they would go back and forth between the two places. The communities were very... If you look at this on a map, the communities are kind of intertwined. and like you you know You're coming out here to...
00:33:19
Speaker
ah to hunt, but like, I think the the view of people who lived in rural Wisconsin, looking at people who came from Minnesota to hunt was kind of like, it had nothing to do with race. It was like looking down your nose at like a weekend warrior kind of situation.
00:33:34
Speaker
Right. Like none of it, it was all just people Against people, I guess, if you're going to say it it. I don't know that your race had anything to do with it. Right. um So some of the things that are like allegedly said, I don't know that we get to racial slurs. I think they use some nicknames. like If you called somebody Benny, and that's because they're like not a local person,
00:34:04
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? i'm like yeah Like if you're at the beach and you were like making fun of tourists, I think it's more like that than is racist. But like there could still be some racism here. That's fine. It doesn't justify it like you were saying.
00:34:17
Speaker
So Kai's trial gets underway on a Saturday. September 10th of 2005, it has to be moved around a couple of different places along the way. um They finally get 12 jurors and two alternates from a neighboring county.
00:34:35
Speaker
They are busing these people a long way and sequestering them because of how much coverage this got up there. Yeah, that's why it's on a Saturday. They probably were having trial every single day.
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah, and the state pretty much presents exactly what I just said. There were some issues along the way. um It was kind of weird that he took the scope off his gun, and then that causes the court to break at one point and like check to see if there's forensic testing that's done, like and the difference in how the shooting had gone on and what law enforcement had done with the gun. It turns out to be largely irrelevant.
00:35:11
Speaker
State presents and rests its case pretty much exactly like we just described. They just have people from the scene talking. And Kai gets on the stand for the defense.
00:35:23
Speaker
He tells the jury that he feared for his life and he only fired because another hunter shot nearly hit him. He details how the other hunters approach him. And I am sure it is with all of the adrenaline rush you can imagine, like with somebody who's experienced like different hunters on their land trespassing and like somebody's trying to help them out with that. Like it's not going to be polite because like everybody's puffing up a little bit to like look a little bigger and make sure that they understand not to be here.
00:35:55
Speaker
But I don't believe that he was shot at. No, that's not a thing. Right. And so that is, ah he says that everything happened because of that. And i just don't, believe I don't believe a person, a group of people would approach and say, and shoot and say, like, get off my land. Right. And there are some language issues here More understanding in terms of like the language issues than it is like a complete language barrier. But they make a little use of that.
00:36:27
Speaker
For Kai's part, he responds and tells everybody how like how he shot. He tells the jury how he shot each one. He basically shot two victims in the back because they were disrespectful, according to his testimony.
00:36:40
Speaker
He is able to recount with a lot of detail how he killed each of these people. On the stand, he said that he wished it wasn't happening. and He gets into an argument with one of the prosecutors over who deserved to die and basically says that at least three of them deserve to die, including Bob, who is the owner of the property out here.
00:37:04
Speaker
He also testifies that Joseph deserved to die. And I think his like rationale there was that Joseph cut him off to stop him from going anywhere and gave him a finger. He said that Alan Lasky had provoked him and that Alan Lasky was using a gun to threaten his life.
00:37:20
Speaker
He reenacts all this while he's on the stand. um He imitates like using the rifle, and like it's actually kind of creepy. His lawyers, his public defender, gets in and tries to like offset some of what Kai is doing on the stand, and it doesn't go all that well.
00:37:38
Speaker
the he tries to present a much bigger language barrier than there is. and he talks about there being a misunderstanding to the question, did they deserve to die? And that it was more about responsibility and the contribution the circumstances that they were sharing in with Kai.
00:37:57
Speaker
But um by September 16th, so six days into this, Kai is found guilty of all six charges of first degree intentional homicide Three charges of attempted homicide. ah Steve Cohen notes that like he had faced verbal abuse and racial epithets in this in this confrontation.
00:38:15
Speaker
the jury that was selected is all white. um all Basically, all of the minorities had been squeezed out of the jury selection. On November 8th, he's sentenced to six consecutive life terms plus 70 years.
00:38:29
Speaker
ah He ends up getting 40 years for the two counts of attempted homicide. He gets an additional five years for the additional homicides in the first degree. they're just they They do this weird thing to like basically get him up to the point that he has life in prison without the possibility of parole. It's it's a little tricky how they sentence him It honestly doesn't make the most sense, but I understand what the judge was doing because their hands were kind of tied with the statutes there. Obviously, this is a ah time when Wisconsin does not have the death penalty.
00:39:08
Speaker
In 2005, they would have been one of 12 states that didn't have it at all.
Incarceration and Racial Tensions
00:39:13
Speaker
So he's moved around a couple of different Wisconsin correctional institutions. At one point, they even move him out of state. They move him to Iowa.
00:39:26
Speaker
and There are some issues over our racial concerns. I don't know if it's him, his perception, or other people and their treatment. Generally, a lot of correctional institutions in prison have racial concerns.
00:39:39
Speaker
So, ah you know I'm flagging this and i'm not I'm not blowing this off. I'm just saying like in this instance, this type of response, I don't know how you respond to that without like some serious mental health issue going on.
00:39:54
Speaker
Does that sense? I think so. i i have i can say that I've never seen, even in you know reference in other places, I've never seen like a huge racial problem that seems to be in his mind, like at his perspective.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah. i've I've never seen it. like I've never seen any sort of issue. i believe there's racism and violent racism going on between A lot of different groups, including these groups. I just don't think this situation is it.
00:40:32
Speaker
They could have gone a different route in terms of his defense, working on a defense from more related to his mental health or more PTSD or trauma related. They didn't go that way, so we can't really comment on that because that would be completely speculating on what ifs.
00:40:47
Speaker
Right, but he sat on the stand and testified that he had testified in front of the jurors that ah he had shot, I believe he said, two of the victims in the back because they were disrespectful, okay which is clearly not a self-defense move, Right.
00:41:09
Speaker
ah He also said that people deserve to die. And ah his testimony pretty much in and of itself, which if you're going to be arguing for self-defense and you don't have a witness on...
00:41:26
Speaker
your side to say that you acted in self-defense, you're going to be testifying, right? Yeah. there's no There's no way around that if if that's what the argument is and there's not some sort of independent compelling evidence. And then...
00:41:44
Speaker
ah Once you're testifying, you know, the jury serving as the finder of fact in the case, they get to weigh the credibility of what you're saying, right?
00:41:56
Speaker
And they get to decide, do we believe this was done in self-defense? And, you know, that's kind of how that goes. And so he pretty much had to testify because... though the people that he had shot that survived, they certainly weren't going to be testifying that he acted in self-defense, right? Yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
And so, there and to my knowledge, there was no one else there ah when it occurred. It was two surviving victims, and the rest of the people died.
00:42:30
Speaker
Yeah. i that's That's a good summary, yeah. Okay. Okay. the I mean, the prosecution is basically said this guy had a temper tantrum with a gun. yeah and but it was a little more than that, obviously. but yeah, that's what happened. It was completely uncalled for. it There was no chance that it was ever going to be found to be self-defense.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:43:03
Speaker
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00:43:14
Speaker
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00:43:36
Speaker
No scars. We're in trouble. We took it too far.
00:43:47
Speaker
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00:43:58
Speaker
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00:44:09
Speaker
True Crime Access is brought to you by John Meg. It's written, produced, edited, and posted by John and Meg. You can always support True Crime Access through Patreon.com, or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at TrueCrimeAccess.com.
00:44:27
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.