Victims say Shiue trial offers comfort after 30 years
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A seven-day trial for the man accused of one of Minnesota's notorious crimes wrapped up in Anoka on Tuesday.
Ming Sen Shiue kidnapped one of his former teachers and her daughter in 1980. He raped Mary Stauffer for a month and a half, threatening to kill her daughter, Beth, if she didn't comply.
He also killed a 6-year-old boy, Jason Wilkman, who happened to witness the abduction in progress when Shiue stopped to check on the Stauffers, bound in the trunk of Mary's car.
The Stauffers escaped after seven weeks in captivity in Shiue's home in Roseville. Shiue had threatened to kill them, and even to kill 8-year-old Beth's future children, if he were caught and ever released from prison. He has been serving a federal life sentence for the last 30 years and his case is up for review this summer by federal parole authorities.
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"It was painful in some ways to hear some of the testimony, and a reminder again that we survived only by the grace of God," said Mary Stauffer, after the trial adjourned for the last time.
Authorities in Anoka County, where Wilkman's body was found in 1980, are trying to have Shiue committed to a high security state sex offender program in Moose Lake, in case he's ever eligible for release from federal prison.
In 20 years, no one yet has left Minnesota's sex offender commitment program alive, according to Dr. Paul Reitman, one of the psychologists who recently evaluated Shiue in prison.
Beth Stauffer took the stand to talk about her continuing fear of Shiue. But after testimony concluded, both she and her mother also said the trial offered them some comfort after all these years.
Reitman and another psychologist have recommended Shiue be sent to Moose Lake. A third agreed Shiue needed sex offender treatment, but said it could be completed in prison, before he was released.
Anoka County District Court Judge Jenny Walker Jasper is expected to rule on Shiue's confinement by October.
