Victims speak about bizarre 1980 kidnap-murder case
Thirty years after he kidnapped his former math teacher and her daughter, Ming Sen Shiue faced his victims in court again in Anoka today.
Shiue has spent the last 30 years in federal prison for abducting Mary Stauffer, then 36, and her 8-year-old daughter at gunpoint. He kept the two imprisoned in his Roseville home for seven weeks before they managed to escape.
Beth Stauffer said in court that the incident still haunts her. She said Shiue threatened to hunt down her and her own children if he was caught, imprisoned and ever released.
"I'm a mother today," said Stauffer, who is now married and has a different last name, which she asked not be released. "Everything he ever told us during the kidnapping, he did. I don't know that I'd let my children go out to a park, to a mall, if he were released."
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Shiue testified today that he felt rehabilitated by the decades in high security prison. He said he'd also willingly undergo sexual offender treatment, and would have before, but couldn't because it wasn't available in the prisons where he'd been held.
Shiue did apologize for his crimes, and recounted them in some detail in court. He said he had what he called a "schoolboy crush" on Mary as a high school student. He said the impulse grew to an obsession, prompting him to stalk and abduct her 15 years later. He locked her and her daughter in a closet and raped Mary Stauffer repeatedly while he held the pair.
He also beat to death a six-year-old boy, Jason Wilkman, who happened to spot the kidnapping in progress. Shiue led authorities to Wilman's body in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area after the Stauffer's escape and his arrest.
"The remorse and sorrow remains heavy on me," he said, reading a written apology he submitted to the court. "I regret acting in that matter. I chose to do wrong. I had no concern for anybody."
The legal legacy of the Wilkman slaying now has prosecutors in Anoka seeking to have Shiue committed to the state's sex offender program in Moose Lake. Assistant Anoka County Attorney Janice Allen said that there was no overt sign that Shiue had changed while in prison, although he is 29 years older.
He walked through the courthouse with a walker, but also shackles around his ankles, testament to his violent past in court. Shiue attacked Mary Stauffer during his murder trial in 1981, slashing her face and neck with a knife he'd smuggled into the courtroom.
His attorney, Rick Mattox, argued that Shiue, 59, is old and infirm. Shiue suffers from arthritis and kidney failure and is unlikely to re-offend, Mattox said during the first day of Shiue's commitment trial.
A series of psychological experts will testifiy about Shiue's condition. A court appointed pyschologist testified today that she had doubts about Shiue's truthfulness and his "grandiose" sense of self-importance.
Anoka County District Court Judge Jenny Walker Jasper, rather than a jury, is hearing the case. The trial is expected to last at least through Wednesday, and it isn't clear when the judge will rule on the matter.
Shiue has served 30 years of a federal life term and is up for a parole consideration by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in July. He was turned down at a parole hearing last year, and may have to undergo several years of sexual offender treatment before he's let out of prison.