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Witnesses From Hunters' Shooting Scene To Testify

Hayward, Wis. (AP) ― Prosecutors will call as witnesses more than just the two men who survived wounds in the trial of a Minnesota man accused of killing six northern Wisconsin deer hunters in a barrage of at least 20 shots, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said.

Several people at or near the area will also testify into the Nov. 21 shootings at a Sawyer County deer camp, where 15 people had gathered, she said, without saying who the witnesses would be.

"I can't talk about witness priority," Lautenschlager said. "The trial is proceeding as we have planned."

The murder trial of Chai Soua Vang resumed Monday with Sawyer County Circuit Judge Norman Yackel saying he's willing to reconsider a ban on still photography he imposed Saturday after defense attorneys complained about camera noise.

Yackel said he would consider allowing cameras under the condition they were muffled. A decision was due later in the day.

On Saturday, attorneys gave opening statements and four law enforcement officials testified in a courtroom packed with nearly 100 people, most of them relatives or friends of the victims from nearby Rice Lake.

Vang, a 36-year-old Hmong immigrant and truck driver from St. Paul, Minn., is charged with six counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder in the shootings that erupted after the hunters confronted him for trespassing in a tree stand. He faces mandatory life in prison if convicted. Wisconsin does not have the death penalty.

Vang, a deer hunter since 1992, says he acted in self-defense after someone shot at him first. His attorney told jurors Saturday Vang will tell his story, "how he perceived a shot was fired at him, toward him."

Based on court records, the state's key witnesses are Terry Willers and Lauren Hesebeck -- two hunters who survived wounds to either their neck or shoulder. They heard and saw everything that led up to the shootings.

Willers had the only gun found among the hunters, a Browning .270-caliber automatic rifle, investigators said. It holds five bullets and four were found in it, Assistant Attorney General Roy Korte said.

Hesebeck said he shot once at Vang after some of his friends had already been shot, Korte said. Hesebeck also told investigators he thought Willers had shot once, Korte said.

After the first day of testimony concluded, Lautenschlager would not say when Willers and Hesebeck would testify, other than they were among several witnesses from the scene who would take the stand.

She said testimony would resume Monday with more law enforcement officials.

The 10-woman, four-man jury saw pictures and a video of the crime scene and footage of the bodies, all wearing blaze orange hunting jackets, lying in the woods among leaves, sticks and brush.

"The video allowed the jury to see the scene in its entirety and get a feel for what it had been like," Lautenschlager said.

Vang's attorney, Steven Kohn, called the video helpful in showing the terrain and the difficulty for Vang to see what was occurring.

In opening statements, prosecutors said Willers found Vang in the tree stand on 80 acres of private land and asked him to leave. Vang climbed from the stand and was heading down a trail when two ATVs with the other hunters arrived, prosecutors said.

Korte said one of the dead hunters, Robert Crotteau, a co-owner of the land, was angry at Vang and used profanity but not racial slurs in demanding him to leave. The only threat made was to report Vang to conservation wardens for trespassing by writing down Vang's hunting license number from a tag he was wearing on the back of his blaze orange jacket.

But Kohn told the jury Willers was "abrupt and antagonistic" when he first saw Vang, demanding he "get the hell off this property." In reporting the trespasser with a radio call to others at the group's hunting cabin, Willers called Vang a "tree rat," Kohn said.

Vang was leaving peacefully when the two ATVs with more angry hunters arrived, Kohn said.

"Unfortunately, Robert Crotteau wants to get into the situation," Kohn said.

Kohn said Vang came under a vicious verbal attack from the hunters in which "race and racial prejudice played a part," and he felt frightened and under siege.

"He knows he was shot at by some very hostile individuals," Kohn told the jury.

Korte said Willers saw Vang remove the scope from his black semiautomatic rifle. Willers got nervous and removed his gun that he had holstered on his shoulder but didn't point it at Vang before Vang fired twice at him, one shot hitting him in the neck.

One victim was shot in the head, four in the back and one in the stomach in a rampage in which Vang fired at least 20 shots, Korte said. One victim, Crotteau's son, was killed after he ran nearly 500 feet away.

According to Korte, Vang tried twice to kill Hesebeck and only fled from the scene when Hesebeck shot back once with Willers' gun and missed.

(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)