Wife details husband’s deadly spiral
‘Nothing seems real to me’ after killings
Nengmy Vang was wearing a dark suit and a crisp white shirt open at the collar on March 22 when he entered Marathon Savings Bank in Rothschild.
When she saw him, Naly Vang knew something bad was about to happen.
Naly and Nengmy Vang had been married 25 years, a troubled relationship that led to a contentious divorce process. That process wasn’t going fast enough for Nengmy, who strode to Naly’s customer service window at the bank just before 1 p.m. and demanded that she sign their divorce papers within 24 hours.
It was a demand he had made that morning when he called her cellphone. The 41year-old woman again said no. She wanted the divorce to go through legal channels, and besides, the request made no sense.
“There weren’t any papers to sign,” Naly said.
But she was afraid. Nengmy was dressed too formally to be heading to his job at a Marathon Cheese factory. He snarled at her in Hmong: “Do you want to die now?”
“No,” she said. With that, he turned and walked out of the bank. Naly knew he was going out to his car, where he typically kept a handgun, and that he likely intended to come back with it.
“I was shaking,” she said. “My body knew it was serious.”
She turned to her longtime friends and co-workers, Dianne Look and Karen Barclay, who had been there for her so many times as her relationship with Nengmy splintered. “I need a place to run. I need to hide.”
They told her to go out the back door, and she ran into a Subway restaurant in the same strip mall.
Shooting spree
When Nengmy returned moments later with a gun, Naly was gone.
He shot and killed Look and Barclay.
Ten minutes later, Marathon County 911 dispatchers
took a call from the Tlusty, Kennedy and Dirks law office along Grand Avenue in Schofield, where Naly’s attorney, 43-yearold Sara Quirt Sann, worked. Nengmy held two people at gunpoint, then shot and killed Quirt Sann.
He headed to his apartment in Weston. Everest Metro Police Detective Jason Weiland was hit by a bullet and killed as he set up a safety perimeter around the apartment in which Nengmy was holed up.
Later in the afternoon, police officers from multiple agencies exchanged gunfire with Nengmy and stormed the apartment. Nengmy was hit, seriously injured, and rushed to Aspirus Wausau Hospital. He remained there until his death April 1.
Now, Naly Vang is opening up for the first time publicly about their troubles, and her perspective on the events that left multiple families in mourning. Her words are backed by records from the Everest Metro Police Department and sources who knew her and her husband.
Naly spoke to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin three times over the course of the last several weeks. The story was painful, she said, but she felt it was important for people to understand what happened.
Rushed marriage
Naly was a naive teenager, about 16 years old, when she met Nengmy in the early 1990s. Things moved fast. He was a few years older and knew Hmong culture and traditions. Naly thought at the time it would be good to be more in tune with her Hmong heritage. The two didn’t date much, but at age 17, Naly felt marrying Nengmy was the right thing to do, the Hmong thing to do. Plus, she thought, getting married would mean she would have more freedom, so she could have more fun. Did she love Nengmy? “I don’t even know what love is,” Naly said.
Their first child was born just after they were married when Naly was still 17 years old. The couple would go on to have seven children. The oldest is now 23, the youngest 15 months. Two of her children are married and living on their own. Five still live with Naly in their Weston home.
In the first years of their marriage, Naly spent her time caring for the children, working, and going to class — first high school, then college. It wasn’t a bad marriage, but not a strong one either, she said. Nengmy also worked, and gradually developed hobbies apart from Naly — hunting, fishing and photography.
While still attending college, Naly began working part time at Marathon Savings Bank. She wasn’t earning much money, but the job gave her flexibility to care for her children.
She also loved the atmosphere. The Rothschild branch of Marathon Savings Bank is small, and the only people working there most of the time were Naly, Barclay and Look. The three grew close.
“We were like sisters, or they were like mothers to me,” Naly said.
Naly often had to use her lunch time to run around town and do errands related to the children. When she returned to work, it wasn’t unusual for Barclay to turn to her and ask, “Did you eat lunch?” If she hadn’t, Barclay would cover for her to take time to eat.
When Naly was pregnant, Barclay was especially attentive. “She once brought me a car seat for the baby,” Naly said.
After Nengmy and Naly had split up, and Naly was approaching the birth of her seventh child, both Barclay and Look offered to take her to the hospital and be with her for the birth.
Money troubles
About a decade ago, Nengmy began spending more time away from the family home. He was going to parties and drinking, Naly said. Often, he came home and demanded that Naly prepare food for him and his friends, or a large family gathering. Naly pushed back, saying she was already overwhelmed with work and caring for the children — with little help from him.
“He started saying I was a bad wife,” Naly said.
Naly’s friends began to tell her stories about how they saw him dancing with other women. She said she looked at his phone bills, and saw that he was making call after call to another woman.
Naly handled the family’s finances, and the two of them clashed over his spending, she said. Court records show Nengmy had difficulty paying bills and was sued several times for unpaid credit card balances. All along Naly tried to rein in his spending, she said.
“But then I would go into the basement and see a new computer, or a new camera,” she said.
In May 2008, Nengmy called police to complain that his wife had broken a camera and a phone after she accused him of having an affair. He also told an officer Naly bit him. Although Nengmy asked officers not to arrest Naly, Wisconsin state law requires an arrest if officers are called to a domestic fight and if there is evidence of a physical fight. Naly told officers that she bit him after he tried to hug her.
“She did not want him near her so she bit him in the arm,” the police report said. She was jailed, found guilty of a noncriminal offense of disorderly conduct and fined.
Throughout the last years of their marriage, Nengmy did not hit or push her, Naly said. But before he moved out, she said, he constantly derided and demeaned her.
“He said that women were like cars,” Naly said. “You could use one for a while, and when it wears out, you get a new one.”
Nengmy moved out of the house in June 2015. Naly was three months pregnant with their seventh child.
Nengmy also filed for a divorce around that time, and Naly agreed they should split. Nengmy pushed for a quick settlement, she said. He wanted to use the Hmong clan system, a cultural procedure in which elders help couples determine issues such as splitting of assets and custody of children.
Naly wanted to go through a legal divorce using the American court system. She wanted to make sure that she got custody, child support and other payments that would be determined by a judge, she said. Naly believes Nengmy had a relationship with a woman in Laos, and he told her he was making plans to move there. She saw, through their joint financial statements, that he was making moves to cash out assets such as a 401(k) retirement account. Quirt Sann, her attorney, was taking legal steps to ensure that Naly could recover them.
After the couple separated, Nengmy began to act erratically, irrationally and sometimes violently, according to his older brother, Vajloogjeb Vaj. Just days after the shootings, Vaj told the Associated Press that Nengmy had been acting “crazy” since he separated from Naly. A few months before the shooting, Vaj said, Nengmy had lost his temper and hit their mother. Vaj believed Nengmy had a severe mental illness. USA TODAY NETWORK Wisconsin was unable to reach Vaj for this story.
Part of the divorce process was to determine whether Naly would receive a form of alimony payments. About a month before the killings, Nengmy and his brother approached Naly’s stepfather and asked him to ask her to drop the need for those payments.
If she didn’t, Nengmy told her stepfather, “something bad might happen,” Naly said. When her stepfather urged her to relent on their request, she believed Nengmy was threatening suicide. “But that didn’t make sense,” she said. “I mean, it was like $100 a month. Who would kill themselves over that?”
Calling police
On March 22, Naly got up about 7:30 a.m. and started getting the kids ready for school. She took a daughter to a doctor’s appointment, then went to work around 11 a.m. The call from Nengmy came around 11:30 a.m., with him pressuring her to sign divorce papers. She said she was not aware of any documents, and put him off.
He gave her 24 hours to do it, or she would be dead. Naly told Barclay and Look about the call and they urged her to call police.
A couple of officers came to the bank, and listened to Naly’s story. They asked Naly if they should contact Nengmy. She said no.
“I thought it would only make him angrier, make it worse,” Naly said.
Less than two hours later, he was in the bank.
Naly doesn’t know the details of what happened after Nengmy returned with a gun, after she fled to Subway.
But she believes Look and Barclay confronted Nengmy together. They are heroes to her and many others.
When Naly ran into Subway, she asked a clerk to call the police because her husband was trying to kill her.
“She looked at me like I was crazy,” Naly said.
A manager took over the situation and called police, who instructed her to lock the sandwich shop door and put customers in the back.
Naly waited with a group of strangers for 30 to 40 minutes. When she walked out of Subway, yellow police tape surrounded the bank. She was put in a police car and taken to a police station, where she told investigators her story. She wasn’t told until later that evening that Look, Barclay and Quirt Sann were dead.
Not responsible
In the days after the shootings, Naly walked through life as if in shock. She attended the funeral service for Look, where she was welcomed warmly by her husband, Bob Look, who had earlier made a special invitation to Naly.
“I wanted her at the funeral,” Look said. “I didn’t want her to accept responsibility for the acts done by somebody else.”
At the funeral, he hugged Naly and told her: “My wife loved you. I love you. We’ve been friends for so long. I don’t hold you responsible for any of this.”
“I don’t want people looking for scapegoats or an easy way out. Don’t make this into a bumper sticker solution,” Look told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. “This had nothing to do with race, nothing to do with ethnic background.”
Naly attended the funeral Mass for Barclay as well. Groups of people hugged Naly over and over as she waited in line to give her condolences to Barclay’s family.
“They were co-workers from the bank. Some were customers, too,” Naly said later. “They just told me they were there for me.”
Naly said she has also received emotional support from her family, but many of them were close to Nengmy, so the situation is difficult and awkward.
As Nengmy’s widow, she had to handle financial arrangements for the service, which was held for 12 hours on April 22. She had to bring clothes for the service, and according to Hmong customs get her husband ready for his journey into the next spiritual world.
She also attended the funeral and sat near her husband’s body, a surreal obligation but one that Naly felt compelled to fulfill.
“I have to be there for my children. They are what keep me going,” Naly said. “But also for my parents. I don’t want to bring disrespect upon them.”
Naly has gone back to work. It wasn’t easy to return to the bank, and it’s been a slow process. At first she was given basic filing tasks to do, and told to rest frequently.
“I was so tired,” she said.
When told in an interview that she must be strong to handle work and child care after what happened, she shrugged and slowly shook her head.
“I don’t know if I’m strong,” Naly said, “or if I’m crazy . ... Nothing seems real to me.”