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- [00:00]
My Vu Yang
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- [00:29]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [00:32]
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- [00:52]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [01:01]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
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- [01:04]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [01:06]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
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Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [01:25]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
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- [01:29]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
See terms at Venmo Me terms. The crime scene in the murder of Chung Wei Yang didn't just look wrong. It looked intentional. No warning. No struggle. Just a single shot to the back of the head. Footprints leading nowhere and the hunter's gear stripped away, leaving a trophy. For the Yang family, the question started immediately. For investigators, the answers would point toward a pair of hunters who claimed it was all just a joke. That's next on blood trails. When Mai Vu Yang got a text from her mother one evening in the fall of 2018, she wasn't too concerned to read that her father hadn't come.
- [02:26]
My Vu Yang
Home from deer hunting when it first happened. It felt like a normal thing that happens every year. Every year. My mom always freaks out when my dad doesn't come home. Right?
- [02:37]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chung Ma Yang had been chasing whitetail at the Rose Lake State wildlife area, about 10 miles northeast of Lansing, Michigan. It was a place he'd hunted dozens, maybe hundreds of times before.
- [02:49]
My Vu Yang
So when my mom started blowing all of our phones November 16th, we just assumed it was the same thing she does every year. We were not alarmed. We were like, mom, dad probably got a deer, and that's why he's not picking up on you. Like, stop overreacting but my vu's mother.
- [03:05]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Refused to be mollified. And as the darkness deepened on that cold November evening and Chung still hadn't responded to calls and messages, the Yang family began to realize that something was wrong.
- [03:17]
My Vu Yang
You know, they're married, so they, you know, she has that, I guess, feeling. She's like, no, this time is different. Like, your dad always calls me when he comes down from the tree.
- [03:24]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The Yang family is a big one, so there were plenty of volunteers to help scour the woods. Chong's brother had been hunting on a different property that day with his son Meng. So the pair drove to Rose lake to put Mrs. Yang's mind at ease. They were joined by Thani Yang, another of Chung's nephews, a along with Donnie's friend, a guy named Lucas Braun. The Rose Lake wildlife area is heavily wooded and it's easy to get turned around, especially in the dark. But the Yang family knew Chong's usual hunting spots, so it didn't take long for their worst fears to be realized.
- [03:57]
My Vu Yang
My niece text me and said, they found grandpa. Someone shot him. And I just remember like blacking out and just screaming and crying because it was just kind of like, you know, we're supposed to have Thanksgiving. Like, what do you mean they found Grandpa Chong?
- [04:15]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Yang was found lying face down in the 2 inches of snow that blanketed the forest floor. The 68 year old hunter had been shot in the back of the head and the bullet had exited his left eye.
- [04:26]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
So during their funeral, his face had to be reconstructed for that because his whole left cheek, pretty much the meat was blown out. It was just kind of the skin left over there.
- [04:37]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That's Joseph Yang, an attorney who helped the family navigate the grueling legal process in the years that followed. He also acted as the family spokesperson. And he told me Chong's brother and nephews could tell right away that this wasn't some kind of innocent mistake.
- [04:51]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Chong hunted with with a gun, with his backpack, as well as a traditional Hmong hunting knife. His backpack was missing as well as his hunting knife was missing. And the gun was missing as well.
- [05:02]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chong hadn't just been shot in the back of the head. His gun and backpack had also been stolen, which told investigators that whoever had done this had walked up to the body, grabbed the nearest valuables within reach and walked away. As my vu's eight brothers and sisters gathered their family for the weeks long mourning process, she knew she had to do something.
- [05:22]
My Vu Yang
So I remember, like my sisters, everybody's coming in and just crying, and I just had to, like, sit down, be like, okay. As much as sadness as I'm feeling right now, someone has to be the rational one. Someone has to ask the right questions. So I just remember that night we were there, and just watching everybody cry, I was just like, no, I'm gonna try to be the rational one and find out who did this.
- [05:44]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
True to her word, Myvu became the tip of the spear, advocating for her father's murderer to be brought to justice. But she had no idea how long or how much of a rollercoaster the next six years would be. Chung's murder baffled the greater Lansing community, as locals wondered how such a quiet, peaceful suburb could experience such a cruel and apparently racist crime. The case teetered on a knife's edge between hot and cold until GPS coordinates a can of scent killer footprints in the snow and a serious blunder by one of the suspects blew the case wide open. But what happened next has been contested even to this day, as investigators have tried to parse fact from fiction, truth from lies, and humor from homicide. I'm Jordan Sillers, and this is Blood Trails. The Murder of Chong Yang, Part 1. Chung Chung Ma Yang was born in Laos in 1950, and it's safe to say he lived a fascinating life.
- [06:54]
My Vu Yang
So my dad was a guerrilla soldier, and then once the US pulled out, he came in. I believe 88 is when they officially came.
- [07:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chung was a member of the Hmong community, a group of people originally from Laos whose history with the Americans began in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.
- [07:12]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
I think everybody knows the Vietnam War, but what they know is what happened in Vietnam during that same time. There was what's called a secret war.
- [07:19]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That's. Yeah. Vang, who you might remember from his appearances on the Meat Eater podcast. Yeah. Is a chef in Minneapolis, where he owns a restaurant that specializes in Hmong cuisine. He sat down with me alongside his friend and another regular meat eater guest, Ya Yang. Together, they helped me understand the history of the Hmong in the US and how that history intersects with the outdoor community.
- [07:41]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
And in the secret war in the northern part of Laos, in the mountains, the communist regime was kind of coming down from that route, and the US Sent in the CIA and Special forces in to train hill people or these mountain peoples, which were the Hmong peoples, and they became a paramilitary troops.
- [08:01]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That's what Maivu means when she says her father was a guerrilla soldier. He joined as many as 100,000 Hmong men who fought alongside the American Special Forces during the Vietnam War. They fought the ground war, flew Combat missions, directed airstrikes, rescued downed American pilots, fought behind enemy lines, and gathered intelligence on the movements of North Vietnamese troops. The problem was, as you know, if you were paying attention in history class, the Americans eventually pulled out of Vietnam. When they did, the Hmong people were in serious trouble.
- [08:35]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
And then there was kind of a genocide of the Hmong people. And so when the Communist troops came through, they just went to the villages of the Hmong people and they killed them off.
- [08:44]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
This was, he explained, an incredibly difficult time for the Hmong, not only because their people were being killed, but also because they felt betrayed by the US after signing on to the vision and values of the American dream.
- [08:58]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
The reason why they joined up was the promise was made that no matter what, win, lose, or draw, your people can come to the United States and have freedom and be citizens. So you have to realize that for a lot of these Hmong veterans who were part of the sgu, the Special Guerrilla Unit, they're true patriots. They fought for a country that they never stepped foot in before, and they fought for a country knowing that there was a promise made. But the promise itself wasn't fulfilled until many years later.
- [09:24]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chung was one of those patriots. Like Ya and Ye's fathers. He joined the war when he was just a teenager in the late 1960s, but was forced to flee Laos when it fell to the Communists in 1975. Here's ya.
- [09:37]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
And that was the beginning of the Hmong people's journey to several different countries, mainly Australia, France, and the United States. But that was kind of the start of the refugee camps and the Hmong people's journey to the US.
- [09:55]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Congress passed a new Refugee act in 1980 that increased the number of refugees allowed into the country each year and helped many Hmong resettle in the US Many made homes in California and North Carolina, but thousands ended up in the upper Midwest states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and, like Chung's family, Michigan.
- [10:15]
My Vu Yang
When he first got here, he took a few construction jobs. He knows how to do a little construction, so. So he did more like handyman work. He did janitor work. So he worked for, like, Francino Mold. He worked for Peckham. He worked for Grand River North Corporation. So he done basically janitary work, maintenance work. My dad was very handy.
- [10:37]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Through hard work and perseverance, Chong cobbled together a comfortable living for his growing family. That work included what Maivu just described. But Chong also took advantage of the grocery store in the woods and on the water.
- [10:50]
My Vu Yang
My dad is the eldest grandson of the family. He's always been the provider he is, like, hunting has always been a way to provide for everyone. He took his cousins that didn't have dads hunting. Like, he literally always been teaching people how to hunt. So he's always been a strong provider for not only the nine children in our family. He also provided for everybody, just took care of everyone.
- [11:14]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Maivu said that part of the reason Chong was hunting the day he died was to harvest some venison to distribute to all his kids when they came home for Thanksgiving. But hunting wasn't just about filling the freezer.
- [11:26]
My Vu Yang
Hunting was his way of relieving stress. You know, all the stress that is on his shoulder. So he used to fish, but then my mom started fishing, and then, you know, she's his stress. So she was. He was like, no, I'm not fishing no more. Because he was just like, I gotta take her with me, and I'm trying to get away from her. So he stopped fishing for a while because, like, he loved it until my mom started. And then he hang up his fishing pole and continue hunting. Hunting was a stress reliever, so he tend to do it by himself. Places that my dad has hunted, he's been hunting for over 29 years. He's very comfortable with the environment that he hunts at. So all the public state lands around Lansing area was like my dad's playground. So we mushroom hunt, we forage, and he goes hunting for squirrel for Dare.
- [12:13]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chung wasn't alone in his love of hunting. As Ya and Ye explained, the Hmong people have a long and proud heritage of living off the land that extends well beyond their time in the U.S.
- [12:24]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
The Chinese would call us the Miao. The word Miao literally translates the sons of the soil. Our people have constantly, constantly been the people of the land. We are people of the land, so. So we use the land around us for survival, to build, to grow. Hunting and fishing is like in our blood. I mean, if you talk to any Hmong grandpa or uncles who came in from Laos, Thailand area, they will tell you stories of, yep, this is how you hunt. This is how you set traps. This is how you set snares. This is how you fish. This is what you do. You use the land around you. And so it's so ingrained into our lives.
- [13:05]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Yah used the word subsistence to. To describe how the Hmong people lived in Laos. He doesn't mean they lack necessities, but that they lived their whole lives close to the land.
- [13:15]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
If you lived your entire life in Laos, you wake up and you farmed and you hunted and you fished like that was your life. I mean, outside of that, you probably got married and raised a family to work the land and hunt and fish, right? Because that's how you live.
- [13:30]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Many Hmong took advantage of the plentiful opportunities to hunt and fish in the U.S. but while some were able to navigate the complexities of the North American model of wildlife management, others struggled to adapt to a world where you need to buy a hunting license and observe bag limits.
- [13:47]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
But I also knew cousins and uncles who were like, well, why not? If we can gather this and then we could take all this panfish, take it home, we clean it up, we freeze them, now we have food for the next two to three weeks. And it was no different than harvesting from a farm. I think the problem that we had in our culture was there were elders who were saying, well, I don't get this. I'm just going to do my own thing. You know, which, dude, tell me that's not a Hmong thing, that's just an old person thing, right?
- [14:18]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Both Ye and Yah were quick to point out that many of their parents and grandparents were extremely conscientious of wildlife regulations. Ya said his father would ask his kids to explain the rules to him to make sure he understood them. And Mivu said Chong was always careful to follow hunting laws and etiquette. But even native born Americans have trouble keeping track of all the regs. So you can see how there would be an adjustment period for that first generation of Hmong hunters who settled in the U.S. the reason this is relevant to Chung's case is that during those early years, the Hmong, whether they deserved it or not, earned a reputation for skirting wildlife laws.
- [14:57]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
And then what does that do, man? It builds on more bias than. Which builds on more bias, which then turns into racism, then which turns to the. Like the sentence, you know that sentence, they all are blah, da da da da. They are. Those people do this. Those people do this.
- [15:12]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
As investigators started getting tips in the weeks and months after Chong's death, they found those who expressed versions of this anti Asian bias. Members of Chong's family reported him having run ins with white hunters in the woods.
- [15:24]
My Vu Yang
And.
- [15:25]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
And they couldn't help but wonder if racism could have been one of the motivating factors behind Chung's death. My Vu made a point to say that the vast majority of people in the Lansing area were anything but racist. She says the community came together around the search for Chong's killer, and most of her memories of her dad in the woods are positive.
- [15:45]
My Vu Yang
All the times I did go hunting, I'm a social butterfly. So like, every person I pass, I always had that hiker etiquette where I say, hi, hey. You know, like, just to make sure you're, you know, you always want to be people to remember that. Oh, yeah, I saw this little Asian girl walk in the woods, you know.
- [15:59]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chung's decision to take his daughter on his excursions wasn't a light one. My vu says that it was taboo for girls to hunt. And so she especially appreciates her father's willingness to include her in what was traditionally a male activity.
- [16:12]
My Vu Yang
I never wanted to do garden with my mom, so I was like, can I go with you guys? And my dad was like, hurry up, go hide in the car. So he always took me fishing and hunting with them. You know, even like when we were like little and my dad would go hunting and then he'll take me, my little brother, and then we'll be like his little puppy. When he shot a squirrel, we'll go and grab a stick, poke it, make sure it's dead, and then we pick it up. So that's great memories we have of hunting with my dad. He wanted to go hunting, but he had to watch us, so he took us with him.
- [16:40]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
After Chung passed, Maivu was going through his things and found that he'd kept her hunter's education certificate.
- [16:48]
My Vu Yang
And I didn't even know that he kept it in there. And I found it like, after he passed away, and then we're going through all his stuff. So to be able to, like, have my dad, like, allow me to join with them, even though I was a girl, it was like a great experience growing up. Like I remember, like, when we were younger, we'll go mushroom foraging. And for this particular year, I decided to wear my white air force to go out into the woods. Yes, during mushroom season, it's really wet out there, right? Did not think of it. So my dad piggybacked me through the swamps so my white air forces wouldn't get dirty. And I was like a teenager, you know, and my dad was piggybacking me through these swamps just because my smart butt decided to wear my white air force to go mushroom hunting.
- [17:33]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Chong's death was a major blow to the Yang family. And not just because they lost a kind hearted father who would carry his daughter through the woods so her new shoes wouldn't get dirty. As my view explained, Chung was the oldest male in the family. As such, he had a special role as a provider, a mediator, and a mentor.
- [17:53]
My Vu Yang
My Brothers lost the mentors. A lot of my uncles, they, you know, my dad was the oldest one, so my dad was always the one like they all went to talk to. Because my dad, he's very soft spoken. He doesn't like confrontation. He likes to, you know, be very reasonable. So he always is the level headed one where he tried to gap the bridges. That's just all he's done his whole life was gap bridges between the new generation, the old generation, make sure that everybody is taken care of. So it was really hard to see my brothers, my uncles, all his friends. Everybody just changed after my dad died, you know what I mean? Like at my wedding, you know, like all the uncles were like, you know, if your dad was here, this is what your dad would have said because this is what he said to our daughters. You can definitely see the depression that everybody had in my family. Hunting was different for everyone too. Like everything has been a lot different without my dad, you know, because, you know, even though like he was level headed, he also had this like joker mentality where he will like make a situation a little bit better with a joke here and there. So we never really got to drown in sorrow. He was like some ray of sunshine, some ray of reasoning for everyone. So to lose that sunshine and rain for everyone, it was still very difficult.
- [19:11]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Unless you've experienced something like this yourself, it's tough to imagine what the Yang family went through as they tried to pick up the pieces after finding Chong lying on that forest floor. But as they worked to fill the unfillable gap Chong had left, detectives with the Bath Township Police Department began to piece together what had happened to the father, grandfather and lifelong Hmong hunter. That's next after the break.
- [19:41]
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- [21:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [22:46]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Part two the Crime Scene Detective Brian Miller had been with the Bath Township police for about six years when Chung was killed in 2018. He took the lead on the investigation because the incident happened within the township's jurisdiction. But he'd only been a detective for about 11 months. This was also his first homicide investigation as the case officer in charge, which turned out to be a pretty raw deal. That's because, as I've mentioned before, homicides in a rural wooded area are some of the most difficult to solve. Evidence can be easily hidden or destroyed, witnesses are few and far between, and it's impossible to say exactly how large the crime scene is. The 2 inches of fresh snow on the ground might have been a big help, but by the time Detective Miller arrived at the scene, it was tough to tell one print from another.
- [23:36]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Yes, there's blueprints all over the place. I mean, if you can imagine somebody, either family responding and then you add on the emergency personnel, there's going to be blueprints everywhere. But there's only one unique set that goes that way.
- [23:48]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That's Joseph Yang. Again, the family attorney, Detective Miller, was not permitted to speak on the record since this case is still in the appellate process. But Joseph knows as much about Chong's investigation as anyone who wasn't in the police department. I was able to obtain the entire case file from the Bath Township police. That included incident reports, tips received emails between detectives and prosecutors, and screenshots of phones and other electronic evidence. One of the first things Miller noticed is what you've just heard. While the Yang family had left their own boot prints around Chong's body as they ran to check on their uncle and brother, there was one set of prints that walked off by itself. Whoever had left them had walked back and forth between Chung's body and a nearby log and then traveled north away from the body towards a larger footpath. The only other set of prints that could be distinguished was Chong's, which led back to his tree stand. Chong was wearing camo clothing and a hunter's orange vest, and investigators found a flashlight underneath his body, along with a headlamp battery pack near his head. It was obvious to investigators that the 68 year old was shot while walking home after climbing down from his tree stand. Sunset was at 5:09 that evening, which means legal shooting hours ended at 5:39, assuming about 20 minutes to pack up his stuff, climb down and start walking out. Miller estimated that Chung was shot around 6pm he also spoke to at least two neighbors in the area who reported hearing a shot around that time, which they noted because it was obviously after legal hunting hours to kind of hear.
- [25:26]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Something like this, this type of tragedy, you know, at first you think, oh, was it a hunting accident? You hear about that stuff all the time, right? Something moved, they thought it was an animal and they shot. It happens. Unfortunately, it does, and for hunters that's kind of a risk. But when we started hearing more details.
- [25:42]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
And starting to get more information for.
- [25:43]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Detective Miller, kind of explaining what happened, it was a shock to the system because we couldn't imagine such a mild mannered man being shot in that way.
- [25:52]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Those details were more about what wasn't at the crime scene than about what was actually found.
- [25:58]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Chong hunted with with a gun, with his backpack, as well as a traditional Hmong hunting knife. His backpack was missing as well as his Hunting knife was missing, and the gun was missing as well. And, you know, the defense tried to say, well, he. Maybe he was scouting or something like that. No, he went. He went hunting. He told his family he went to hunt. And nobody hunts without a gun, especially during gun season. His family hunted with him all the time. They said whenever he went, he had his gun, his hunting knife, and his backpack with just kind of miscellaneous things that he might need and his ammo bag and stuff like that. So all that was gone.
- [26:29]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The theft of Chong's gun, backpack, and knife didn't totally rule out an accident, but it definitely gave what happened a far more sinister edge.
- [26:39]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Normal accident, hunting accident. You shoot, you realize it's not a deer. You try to help, you call authorities. I mean, that's your fellow brother hunting brother. Right? You would never want that to happen to you. If you're a hunter out there, if. If something happens, you go out there, you go help them.
- [26:53]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
You.
- [26:54]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
You don't take their gun, their backpack, and their knife and leave them out there in the cold to die alone.
- [27:00]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The wound in Chong's head was a grisly one, but it didn't offer as much information as you might think. Medical examiners concluded that the wound was made by a caliber larger than a.22. But even though they were able to extract two pieces of bullet fragment, they weren't able to determine a more specific caliber.
- [27:19]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
They really couldn't get any evidentiary value of, like, is this manufacturer or something of that nature. The metal was just kind of a generic metal, and so they couldn't get anything specific from that. I mean, based on the bullet, it looks kind of like a rifle just because of the size of it all. But they couldn't even say what it was because the bullet was so mangled, and it was just generic metal that they couldn't really say specifically what it was. It's kind of a theory that it might have been a rifle. Definitely not buckshot or anything of that nature.
- [27:50]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The forensic pathologist, a woman named Dr. Alicia Wilson, said the two pieces of metal found near Chung's eye appeared to be, quote, parts of a jacket. Copper, in other words, as opposed to the lead found inside a copper jacketed bullet. This might suggest a rifle bullet, like Joseph said, and it would indeed exclude the kind of all lead slug commonly used in shotguns. But it's also possible that the projectile was what's called a sabo slug, sometimes pronounced sabot slug. These copper jacketed bullets are most commonly used in shotguns and muzzleloading rifles. And they feature the conical shape we associate with modern projectiles. They also have a plastic base designed to interface with a barrel's rifling to spin the bullet and increase accuracy. In other words, while Detective Miller knew he wasn't looking for a rimfire rifle or someone using buckshot, he couldn't narrow things down much beyond that. It could have been someone using a shotgun or muzzleloader with a SABO slug or any rifle chambered in a caliber or larger than a.22. He also couldn't know for sure which way the shot came from or how far away the shooter was. The shot entered through the back of Chung's head, but the hunter could have been looking to one side or the other. There was also no way to know whether or how much he'd moved around after being hit. Dr. Wilson testified that she ruled out a close proximity shot due to the lack of soot on the wound, but she couldn't narrow the distance much beyond that. The long and short of it was the crime scene didn't offer Detective Miller or his colleagues much information. They didn't find anyone else's belongings on the ground, and they weren't able to match the foreign DNA found on Chung's body to anyone else. That DNA could have been from a relative, co worker, or the murderer. The only evidence that anyone else had even been at the scene were those boot prints.
- [29:46]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
There's a path, there's a main artery that goes through there. And of course, the investigation happens, the family goes out to find them. There's boot prints everywhere in that area, but there's one unique set of boot prints that kind of loops up and then comes back down. And that unique set of boot prints is where that spray is found.
- [30:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That spray was a can of scent Killer, and it was found in a plastic grocery bag next to the same kind of boot prints that had walked next to Chung's body. But while police did eventually collect it, they didn't realize at first that it was connected to the crime scene.
- [30:20]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
And with the police officer, when they scanned the area, they found it and they marked it, but it wasn't even anything. They thought it was just a litter, just kind of trashed.
- [30:28]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The night chong was killed, Sergeant Patrick McPherson found the can of scent killer about 300 yards to the south of the body. He was scouring the woods in search of evidence, and he noticed a set of prints that matched those found near Chung. These prints led away from the main trail to the west and towards some private property. The prints led him to the can of Scent spray. But he wasn't sure whether it was connected to the crime scene. That's because when he followed those prints back to the main trail, he couldn't distinguish them from the other boot marks on the trail. He didn't pick up the bag and can that night, but the next day, Detective Miller asked him to go back and retrieve it. It's possible that whoever had killed Chong had walked back to the main trail and then veered off to the west towards private property to dropping the scent spray on the way. They couldn't say for sure, but the fact that those prints matched the ones found near Chung suggested the two could be linked. Detective Miller's instincts turned out to be correct. They wouldn't know it for another six years. But that can of scent killer became one of the most crucial pieces of evidence in the prosecution of Chong's murderer. Part 3 tips and leads with the crime scene failing to produce any solid leads, Detective Miller turned to the general public for help. The police department put out press releases asking to speak with anyone who had been near Rose Lake that day or who might have heard something relevant about what happened. Maevu was a big part of this campaign. She launched a Facebook page to raise awareness about her father's case. She also organized yearly events commemorating his death and put flyers around towns soliciting leads.
- [32:13]
My Vu Yang
When it first happened, everybody in Camel was a potential suspect. So it was very scary to like, because at that time I was making flyers, I was going to Rose Lake into other public state land, and I was putting flyers on people's card asking, like, if they know anything. You know what I mean? So it was scary to be in that position where you don't know, is this the potential car of the person who killed my dad? Like, you just didn't know.
- [32:41]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Some of the tips they received were more helpful than others. One tip, for example, came in through Crime Stoppers and claimed that Chong was murdered by a CIA agent carrying badge number 435. The tipster said Chong was with a group of eight people at the time he was killed, but didn't explain who those other people were or or why the CIA would want Chung dead. It is true that the spooks ran the Hmong operation in Laos, but there was no evidence that Chong had maintained any kind of connection with the agency. And the bit about him being with eight other people was obviously false. So the tip was deemed not credible. Many of the tips that came in revolved around hunters who had expressed anti Asian or anti Hmong bias. The Yang family told Investigators that Chong had experienced this bias in the past and, and investigators looked at several hunters for this reason. One man, for example, posted a Facebook comment that said, quote, I hunt right there. People kill half year old deer, especially the walking white rice and soy sauces that hunt out there. Opening day at 9am, walking out the woods to the Kia or Honda with a squirrel. This fella's name was Matthew Matney, and investigators were obviously interested in hearing more about his views on the case. He told detectives that he hadn't hunted at Rose Lake in the last two years, but he did remember meeting someone he believed was Chung. He said Chong had interrupted his hunt, but when he tried to talk to him, Chung just turned around and walked away. Detectives asked Matney if they could search his cell phone and he said they could. But in what turned out to be an odd bit of foreshadowing, Matney admitted that there was a text on his phone to his cousin and in which he was, quote, joking about killing Chong. This could have ended very poorly for Matney, but he ended up being exonerated by the same phone that could have put him in jail. When detectives pulled the location information from Matney's device, they found that it hadn't been to Bath Township in over a month. On the day of Chong's murder, Matney had been in Lansing at a scrap metal junkyard, which was verified by another detective. Investigators received dozens of other tips over the subsequent months and years. Many were little more than rumors, though. They had to track down each and every one of them. But reading through the case file, there's one name that comes up more than any other in the first two years of the investigation. Jack Kuhn.
- [35:07]
My Vu Yang
The first person that kind of was like on the radar as a person of interest was mentioned as Jack Kuhn. I guess he had this vendetta against Asian people because his dad was a died in the Vietnam War.
- [35:20]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Detective Miller received his first tip about Kuhn In December of 2018, just a few weeks after Chong's death. This tipster said that Kuhn used to live in a trailer park he owned, and Kuhn would complain that his father was killed by a, quote, foreigner during the war. Then, just about a month later, Miller caught Kuhn at the scene of the crime. The detective had placed trail cams looking at the spot Chong had been found. Those cameras took photos of Khun walking past that spot on November 22nd and 25th, about a week after Chung was murdered. In the photos, you can see Khun looking down at the spot where Chung had Fallen, and a pool of blood was still frozen on the ground. This was obviously suspicious, so Detective Miller got in touch with Khun and asked to have a chat. During their initial phone conversation, Khun admitted that he'd been hunting at Rose Lake for the last 20 years, but denied having been out in the woods the night Chong was killed. However, he described the general area of the crime scene as being near one of his usual spots. Later, when he met detectives at Rose Lake to show them where he'd set up his tree stand, he led them directly past the crime scene. He explained that there was only one way in and out from his tree stand, and that route took him past where Chong had been hunting. This wasn't enough to arrest Mr. Coon, but it did make him suspect number one. Though it was never verified, and Kuhn denied it. Detective Miller also received a tip that Kuhn had used a racial slur against Southeast Asians while at a DNR check station.
- [36:53]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
He's one of the many people that they interview to make sure and check off the list. And yes, because of those remarks, he was a suspect. He's a person of interest, and they interviewed him.
- [37:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
But what was perhaps the most damning piece of evidence against Kuhn is that he was seen wearing the same kind of boots that had made those prints around Chong's body. After a lengthy back and forth with Dick's Sporting Goods, Detective Miller confirmed that the boot tread found at the crime scene was most likely made by Field and Stream Swamp Tracker rubber hunting boots. This was a common type of hunting boot at the time, though that particular model appears to have been discontinued. One of Chung's nephews actually had several pairs of this kind of boot, so he was one of the first suspects Detective Miller had to rule out. Miller told other law enforcement officers to be on the lookout for this type of boot. And almost exactly a year after Chung's death, DNR Officer Katie Stawara looked down and saw them on Jack Coon's feet. She was talking to Coon about a separate enforcement issue when she noticed the pair of swamp trackers and. And she informed Detective Miller right away. Kuhn had remained on Miller's radar, but this new information prompted another call down to the station. Kuhn maintained his innocence throughout the course of this second interview and didn't offer any further information. But what Detective Miller had was enough to obtain a search warrant. An officer seized three cell phones, three iPads, two laptop computers, one USB drive, and one pair of hunting boots from the trailer home where Coon lived with his Wife. Miller received a few additional tips from Koon's co workers at Home Depot describing how the man would sometimes joke about killing someone and became, quote, paranoid after finding out he was being investigated for Chong's murder. But none of those tips turned into hard evidence. And none of the items seized from Kuhn's house yielded anything either. In fact, Detective Miller eventually determined that Kuhn probably wasn't the guy he was looking for.
- [38:54]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
The timeline didn't fit for him. He was working, he's traveling back and forth. And so the timeline didn't fit for the kind of that. That six to nine period there and then his cell phone data really didn't hit in that area either, though he lives in the area.
- [39:08]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Detective Miller confirmed that on the day of the murder, Coon had left the Okamos Home Depot in east Lansing at 4.18pm then his phone received a text message from his bank at 4:22 that indicated he'd withdrawn some money from an ATM near that home Depot. Next, he went across the street to Dick's Sporting Goods and purchased a tree stand at 4:34. After that, he drove up to Bath Township and made a debit card withdrawal at a gas station at 4:51 and bought something else at a grocery store at 4:56. Finally, at 6:10pm, right around the time Chong was likely killed, his phone received another text from his bank indicating he he'd used his debit card again at the same gas station in Bath Township. When Detective Miller reviewed the location data from Koon's cell phone, it correlated with the text messages he'd received. He was in the Bath township area between 5 and 7pm on the night of the murder. But the cell tower that showed his phone's location also covered his home. What's more, when that location data was transferred onto a map, the circle of possible locations didn't extend very far into the state wildlife area. There is a margin of error with location information, but it seemed unlikely that Khun had been hunting that night. He just didn't have enough time to be at all those locations and get out to the wildlife area on the same evening. Of course, someone else could have had Khun's phone and debit card. If he planned to kill Chong that night, he could have used an accomplice to make it look like he was in areas where he actually wasn't. Detective Miller tried to obtain surveillance footage from the gas station and grocery stores Kuhn had visited, but they had already deleted it. Fortunately for Old Jack, this wasn't the only evidence that eventually made investigators look elsewhere. Shortly after Chung died, Khun texted his wife to inform her that Chung was killed right by my stand, which is a weird thing to say if you're the one who killed him. Kuhn and his wife were also texting about him going to the gas station and the store, which indicated he was indeed at those locations when Kuhn went out with Detective Miller to show him his tree stand. Miller also noticed that Kuhn walked with a limp.
- [41:24]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
He had a certain walk to him where he would drag his foot. So, like, he would walk and drag, and that day there was snow on the ground, and there were no prints that looked like that in the area where the way that he walked would create a drag.
- [41:37]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Finally, and this information wasn't in the case report, but did come out at the trial, the health app on Khun's phone only showed him having walked 1300ft between 4pm and 9pm on the day of the murder. I used onx to map the distance from the parking lot to where Chung's body was found, and it's just under a mile. This means that even if Khun flew from his job at Home Depot to the wildlife area, he couldn't have gotten out to Chong's body and back without walking eight times farther than his phone indicated. None of this is entirely exonerating, but creating all these false trails and fake evidence would have required an elaborate scheme. And while I haven't met Mr. Kuhn myself, I can't help but wonder if detectives doubted his ability to pull off something like that. In my mind, the family's opinion of the investigation carries a lot of weight. I asked my vu what her experience was like working with Detective Miller, and here's what she said.
- [42:36]
My Vu Yang
At first, it was frustrating because I didn't understand why they couldn't tell me everything. Like, I was really angry at first because, again, my dad just got murdered. But along the way, I started to understand why he was treating everything the way he did. He was very professional about everything. He did his best. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't want us to give our hopes up. He was a hunter. Like, all the police officers are all hunters too. So this is not only a loss to my family, but it was a loss to the hunting community, too.
- [43:05]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
As for Miller's decision to move on from Jack Coon, Maivu thinks he made the right call.
- [43:11]
My Vu Yang
I would definitely say, like, Bath Township, they. They did investigate him. You know, everybody did their part because, like I said, for a long period of time, that was the first name that was kind of on my radar too. During the whole investigation. I feel like Bath Township did their diligent job of eliminating him as a suspect or a person of interest.
- [43:30]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Jack Kuhn may have been suspect number one, but he wasn't the only person the Bath Township police were looking at. Two years into the investigation, two more names appeared on Detective Miller's radar. These individuals had escaped scrutiny for a long time, but thanks to some help from the FBI and a shocking interview all the way down in Miami, their luck was about to run out. That's next after the break.
- [44:02]
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Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [47:07]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Part four the Comedians Modern technology makes our lives easier. But if you're a criminal, that little device in your pocket can also be your worst enemy.
- [47:19]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
The number one thing I learned from this case and being in all the court hearings is your phone has everything, like your cell phone has everything. And so basically what happened was they. They did a search of phones that are in the area, and then they kind of did a process of elimination, right? Have we talked to this person? That person? This person.
- [47:38]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Not long after Chung's murder, Detective Miller and his team sent a search warrant to Google asking for information on the devices in the Rose Lake area the afternoon and evening of the incident. First, they requested device IDs and location data. They eliminated devices that were just traveling along the road or appeared to belong to people living in nearby houses. Then they sent another search warrant to Google, requesting personal information associated with those device IDs. But this process took time. In fact, it wasn't until July of 2020, nearly two years after Chung's death, that Google finally provided contact information for the owners of the devices in question. One belonged to a woman who lived north of the state wildlife area. She said she didn't hunt, and none of the people living at her house did either. But she drove through the wildlife area on her way to work every day, which is why her phone was inside those boundaries in the relevant time frame. The other device belonged to a man named Thomas Olson, a 32 year old who had been the Clinton County Parks and Green space coordinator from 2015 until January of 2020. Clinton county includes Bath and most of the Rose Lake wildlife area. So Miller knew that Olson lived locally, or at least he used to. Miller soon discovered that In February of 2020, Olson had moved to Costa Rica with his wife, who was a citizen of that country. He was supposed to return in March of that year, but never boarded the flight. Instead, he stayed in the country and was in the process of securing residency in Costa Rica while working remotely as a personal trainer. Miller also discovered that Olson had obtained a hunting license in 2018, and the GPS data showed that he was within 600 yards of Chung's body on the night of the murder. There's also a 12 minute gap in Olson's location data from 6:06 to 6:18 that evening. So it's possible he traveled even closer. I should say here that the data investigators obtained from Google were was much more precise than the cell tower data they got on Jack Kuhn's phone. This data is derived from Google apps that have GPS enabled. This can be more or less precise depending on the signal strength, and it can sometimes cut in and out. But anyone who's used Onx to navigate through the forest knows it's usually pretty accurate. When Miller interviewed Olson's co workers, they remembered Olson saying he went hunting on the night of the incident, but with a friend of his named Robert Rodway. Olson had said it was his first time hunting and he had to borrow a Remington 870 Express shotgun from his boss.
- [50:17]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Like I said, that was my first time. I believe it was Rob's first time hunting anything. So we were kind of like, we don't know what we're doing.
- [50:26]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That's Olson. He agreed to sit down for an interview with Miller and FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre. Miller had asked for the FBI's help with some of the more technical aspects of the investigation, such as analyzing the bullet fragments and tracing cell phone data. As a federal agent, McIntyre was also in a position to know that Olsen was planning to fly back to Miami in June of 2021 to get a Covid shot. Miller had already been in touch with Olson via email, so he asked if he could see Olson in person. During his trip to Miami, Olson showed up to a Border Patrol office without a lawyer. He signed a Miranda waiver and said he was happy to help with whatever they needed. He started by giving investigators a summary of what happened on the night of November 16, 2018.
- [51:14]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
We met out at one of the little lots south of Clark Road. Clark Road, Yeah. And the statement. So I think I took work off that day. Maybe. I don't know what day. Was it a Thursday or Friday? I mean, it was Friday.
- [51:26]
Detective Brian Miller
I believe it was a Friday.
- [51:27]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
So I think I took work off so we could get out there, you know, before, because sundown happened so quick after work. So we were gonna get out there, there, you know, like mid afternoon. Like I said, we hung out a little bit and we're like, maybe it's.
- [51:37]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Better if we separate.
- [51:38]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
But again, I have no idea what we're doing. So Rob sort of went up on this hill, and then I said, okay, I'm gonna push north, and I'll take. If I see something, I'll text you. If you see something me just heading towards me, let me know. But it was really. There was nothing. I mean, we sat there. I think I maybe moved twice, and I was like, all right, forget this, you know? So I started to trek back. I didn't. We didn't see anyone. I didn't see anyone else. I'm not sure if Rob saw a guy or what.
- [52:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Like I mentioned, Olsen was hunting with a buddy of his named Robert Rodway. About a week after Miller and McIntyre spoke to Olson, McIntyre caught up with Rodway at the Battle Creek Police Department, which is about 50 miles south of Lansing.
- [52:17]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Tom and I waited till it got dark out there. Tom came back. He was trying to. I don't know if he's trying to call me or text me, but I waited where I was. He came to me, and then we were walking out towards where we're going to leave the woods.
- [52:29]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The pair were interviewed almost three years after they went hunting at Rose Lake, but they tell remarkably similar stories. Rob said he saw a doe, but it was too dark to shoot and it soon ran away. Tom took the lead trying to get back to their cars, but both he and Rob claim they got turned around and it took them a while to find the road.
- [52:48]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
That's like I said in the statement, when we heard a shot and it sounded like to the north of where we were, because we were tracking back south, but, you know, we didn't think anything of it. Somebody in their backyard or, you know, it was just weird because we were taught already thinking about these shooting hours, we're like, oh, that was weird. And then that was it. That's all we thought.
- [53:04]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
That night when we were walking out, we heard a gunshot. We looked at each other. Both said, damn, somebody's poaching. Is there any other reason why I stuck with you besides you thought somebody was poaching or. No, just. Well, yeah, because we come back the next day and somebody's dead.
- [53:15]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Yeah.
- [53:15]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
You know, Tom and I look at you like, damn, somebody's poaching. Guess what? 24 hours later, it could have not been opposed to.
- [53:21]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
They had parked in a lot off Clark Road and then walked north into a section of the wildlife area. But because they got lost in the woods, they came out farther west than they intended. So they had to walk back down the road to get to the parking Lot where they saw they weren't the only ones with a car still in the lot.
- [53:39]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
We saw the car. We said, damn, that guy's lost more than us. We saw the silver Camry.
- [53:45]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That silver Camry was Chung's car. And Olson and Rodway say they both noted it. But before getting into their own cars and leaving, they came back the next morning, Saturday. And Rob says he arrived before Tom.
- [53:58]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
And I saw police officers were on the road. And I'm like, what a bunch of dicks. Sorry. Because you're trying to give us speeding tickets. It's like opening weekend. You're giving them speeding tickets, right? Yeah.
- [54:08]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Rob called Tom to tell him about all the commotion and that he'd spoken to a police officer. When Olsen got out of his car, he says he spoke to the same man.
- [54:17]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I gave him my phone number and address and everything. Basically, the recounting of the night before.
- [54:23]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The problem was there wasn't any evidence that either Rob or Tom had spoken to anyone that morning. Here's Detective Miller.
- [54:30]
Detective Brian Miller
Rob made it clear that it was a Bath Township police officer specifically. And I gotta tell you, Tom, it's not true. You can't talk to a police officer.
- [54:39]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The Bath Township Police Department isn't a large one, so it wasn't difficult for Detective Miller to track down the officers who were there that day. And none of them recalled speaking with either Rob or Tom. What's more, neither man could recall the officer's name or provide a definite description.
- [54:56]
Detective Brian Miller
Remember what he looked like?
- [54:57]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I think he was tall. I mean, like I said, taller, white guy. But I'm not. I can't give you the exact. I mean, it was so quick. It was like a five minute thing. And then I went out to meet Rob.
- [55:07]
Detective Brian Miller
So all that information's recorded, though. Like, there's no way it could have happened with. Without it being recorded. And it wasn't recorded. Like, that's just something that. It didn't happen, Tom.
- [55:17]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Well, it 100% happened. I spoke. I'm not. I mean, I'm not. I don't want to lie. I have nothing to lie about. I had nothing to do with it.
- [55:24]
Detective Brian Miller
I know, I know you had said before that you had talked to. I can't remember if you said a police officer, but Rob said specifically a Bath Township police officer, a white man, you know, kind of a vague description. It could be any one of us. But the fact of my matter is there was only two guys out there and it wasn't them. Like, it doesn't make sense. And that's we're just never going to be able to get over that.
- [55:45]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
This point is important. Beyond the fact that it might indicate a willingness to lie to a police officer. Both Rob and Tom admitted that they were aware of Chong's murder. So why didn't they come forward to tell investigators what they knew? Is it because they were trying to hide their presence in the woods that night, or was there a more innocent explanation? Their story about talking to a police officer wasn't the only indication that they might be trying to hide something. When Tom had driven to Rose Lake that afternoon, he took a direct route, exiting Highway 69 at the Bath exit and then taking Clark Road east to the wildlife area. But Tom's phone indicated that he'd taken a much more circuitous route on his drive home. Here's Special Agent McIntyre walking him through it.
- [56:32]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
But then all the way back that night, you took a lot of off roads and cut through a lot of neighborhoods.
- [56:36]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
No, I mean, not that I remember.
- [56:38]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Because, I mean, this is definitely not one of those direct paths, you know, because this is the Rose Lake area right here. And so, no, I see, you know, when I zoom in and kind of, like, follow the ant trail, there's a lot of, you know, smaller roads taken and cutting through a lot of neighborhoods. So I was curious why you took that sort of route to get home.
- [56:58]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I don't even remember doing that. To the best of my knowledge, I just went right home.
- [57:03]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
You weren't by any chance, like, you know, worried about somebody seeing you in that area or law enforcement or anything like that?
- [57:09]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
No, no, definitely not. I mean, we didn't know anything. We just thought I was just gonna go home, or I did go home. I'm assuming.
- [57:15]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The next morning, November 17, Tom's phone indicated that he drove the more direct route he'd taken the previous afternoon. After hunting that morning, he took the same direct route home. Tom wasn't able to offer an explanation for his driving decisions the night of Chong's murder. So Miller and McIntyre moved on to other relevant topics.
- [57:36]
Detective Brian Miller
What kind of boots were you wearing?
- [57:38]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
It was just that, like I said, part of that brown waiter thing.
- [57:42]
Detective Brian Miller
Have you held on to those hunting clothes?
- [57:45]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
No, probably not since I moved. Probably not. I may have maybe given to somebody, but I kind of just got rid of everything when I moved. Can't take a whole lot.
- [57:54]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Tom had taken a photo of himself the day of that first hunt, and he appeared to be wearing brown waiters with boots attached, not the swamp tracker boots investigators were looking for. Both Tom and Rob Admitted to carrying shotguns that day, but neither could remember what kind of ammunition they used.
- [58:12]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
I don't know for sure what I used. I didn't use buckshot. It would have probably been a slug, which is the ball at the end of the cartridge. I started getting sabot rounds for more like a rifle round. Okay. Later on.
- [58:25]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Okay.
- [58:25]
Detective Brian Miller
Did you buy your own ammo?
- [58:27]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I believe I bought my own.
- [58:29]
Detective Brian Miller
Do you remember what kind of what you bought?
- [58:32]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I think I bought a couple different kinds. I think one was a slug type and another one was like a buck shot. Like I said, I don't remember the one I brought. I'm leaning towards the the slug.
- [58:46]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Just as an aside here. This is a great example of why investigators don't release crime scene information to the public. If Rob and Tom had known the forensic pathologist had found two pieces of copper jacket in Chong's wound, they would have known to say they used buckshot or an all lead slug. Instead, Rob mentions sabo slugs and Tom calls what he used a slug type. This assumes they're guilty and wanted to deceive investigators, which might not be true, but it's still interesting how they describe their ammunition, given what investigators knew at the time. Tom's interview wound its way around many of these same topics, with Miller and McIntyre repeating some questions over the three hour interview to see if Tom would give the same response. Tom denied knowing anything about Chong's gun, backpack, and knife and didn't think Rob knew anything either.
- [59:36]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Do you think there's any chance to Rob did something out there that like maybe you weren't aware of or 100%?
- [59:43]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Yeah. Knowing Rob, there's no way. It's just not. Yeah, it's just not him at all. It's in the realm of that.
- [59:50]
Detective Brian Miller
So I understand you're saying that it's not him, and I mean, it wouldn't be any of us, but I think what happened is an accident in which can happen. Believe me, I know very well. You know, accident happen and people make mistakes. I've done it too many times.
- [60:08]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Oh, I get it. I understand. But no, I mean, there's just. No, I cannot see Rob. You know, like I said, you're not yourself if you do something like that. But, you know, the only shot that we heard that day was when we were back and packing up.
- [60:23]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The pair had hunted in separate locations, so they couldn't have known for sure what their hunting partner was doing. But when the same question was posed to Rob, the he was even more adamant that his friend had nothing to do with Chong's death.
- [60:36]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Is there any possible way when y' all separated that he could have gotten into an accident like this? That is like such a. That's not even a appropriate question to ask. Because, I mean, I mean, I'm not trying to sound like an idiot or an asshole. Sorry, I just swear. But like, I could say that. Okay. Is it possible the neighbor came out of their house and did it? Or is it possible that somebody sat there and cancer for two weeks? I strongly believe from the bottom of my heart, no, like I'm condoning accidentally shoot somebody.
- [61:05]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Another thing investigators wanted to know was whether Tom or Rob held any kind of racial animus towards Hmong people. None of their public social media posts indicated a bias, but Miller wanted to make sure.
- [61:18]
Detective Brian Miller
You ever heard Rob make any kind of racist statement?
- [61:23]
My Vu Yang
No.
- [61:23]
Detective Brian Miller
I mean, no.
- [61:24]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
No.
- [61:25]
Detective Brian Miller
I don't know if you've kept. How much. How much you've kept up with it, what you know about this, but this guy was Hmong. And a lot of people, I think, kind of hence FBI being involved too, think this was a hate crime.
- [61:40]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Okay.
- [61:40]
Detective Brian Miller
And I'm just wondering if there was something there. If I don't know enough about Rob to say whether or not. And that's why I asked you. But yeah. Could there be bad blood for one reason or another from him?
- [61:51]
My Vu Yang
No.
- [61:52]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Rob's a friendly guy and I can't. I mean, 100% not race is not going to go out of his way to do anything like that, even to the lesser extent, you know, even say anything.
- [62:03]
Michigan Assistant Attorney General Richard Cunningham
So.
- [62:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Both Tom and Rob claimed to be using different phones from the ones they had in 2018. Tom said he still had his old phone and was willing to surrender it, but he claimed it no longer held a charge and was still in Costa Rica. When asked if he had any text message history with Rob on his current phone, he denied it.
- [62:21]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
No, it's on the other phone, which is like, you can't even turn it on. But that's in Costa Rica. But no, I don't have any text history with him.
- [62:30]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
But Detective Miller refused to be put off. I just.
- [62:33]
Detective Brian Miller
I have this feeling, Tom, there's something else here.
- [62:35]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Look, I'm. I'm totally.
- [62:37]
Detective Brian Miller
And I. I appreciate it.
- [62:38]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
I just.
- [62:39]
Detective Brian Miller
I just keep getting this feeling, you know, I've taken hundreds of hours of courses to. In interviews and detecting deception and how people act when they're. When they're not being truthful, the words they choose. And I'm seeing that in you, man.
- [62:53]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I. I have nothing at all to hide. I'm trying. I've told you everything that. That I know.
- [62:59]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
At this point, they'd been talking with Tom for almost two hours. It was getting later in the evening, and Miller figured he'd try one more thing while they had Tom in the room.
- [63:09]
Detective Brian Miller
Can I look in that phone just to verify that there are no messages between you and Rob?
- [63:14]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Well, you know, There may be WhatsApp messages between us. I don't know if I have him on WhatsApp. Let me take a look. But you're asking. From that time, those text messages would.
- [63:23]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Be in the other.
- [63:24]
Detective Brian Miller
Yeah, just so I.
- [63:26]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Look, I understand.
- [63:27]
Detective Brian Miller
We came all the way here. We gotta look.
- [63:29]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I get. Look. Okay.
- [63:30]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
You know, I was only able to obtain the audio recording of this interview, so I can't tell you anything about the body language of the three men in the room. But Detective Miller noted in his report that Tom's hand was visibly shaking as he handed over the phone. Detective Miller went silent for several minutes while Tom and Agent McIntyre continued discussing various aspects of the case. But then. Dude, what's up? Detective Miller doesn't answer, and the next 20 seconds are filled with what you might call a pregnant pause. You can honestly feel the tension coming through the microphone. Agent McIntyre continues the interview as Miller scrolls through Tom's phone for another eight minutes until.
- [64:13]
Detective Brian Miller
Dude, the racist stuff is concerning in here.
- [64:18]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
The racist stuff?
- [64:20]
Detective Brian Miller
Yeah. Hail Hitler and the Jews.
- [64:23]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
And I mean, it's just kind of a dark sense of humor.
- [64:28]
Detective Brian Miller
I mean, you think that's what it all.
- [64:31]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if, you know Rob, then those jokes are common, but none of it's like. I don't really know what's in there.
- [64:39]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
But it's common for him to have, like, the dark kind of racist jokes?
- [64:43]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
Well, just.
- [64:44]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Yeah, I mean, jokes that are going to be out there on the edge a little bit, so.
- [64:48]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Well, I guess what specifically I'm asking is, like, in regards to the race jokes, you know, that he makes, if that's. You know, obviously everybody does jokes and. And whatever else, but.
- [64:56]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Yeah, well, what you said, said earlier is, Rob, a racist, makes those jokes, but I don't believe that he honestly thinks any of that. So he does it for a reaction.
- [65:07]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
It was a tough pill to swallow. Olsen had sent a text that read, quote, effing Jews up the ticket prices. So I bought one. Another text said, effing and then a racial slur for Chinese people, while another said, heil Hitler. In another text, Olson complained about there being too many minorities here, not enough whites. Makes Me sick. Rob's side of the conversation was equally racist, but from a legal perspective, talking about putting Jews in ghettos was the least of their problems. The pair had talked not just about minorities in general, but about Chung Yang in particular.
- [65:46]
Detective Brian Miller
So what do you mean? What does it mean by. I'm hoping civilization collapses and we got basic hunter gatherers, right? To Bath to hunt more people.
- [65:58]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Who said Rob's in that? Like I said, I mean, it's a sense of humor thing. Trying to get a reaction.
- [66:06]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
What does it mean to hunt more people, though, especially. And even specifically Sam Bath.
- [66:11]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I mean, playing on this as a.
- [66:14]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Joke, and you didn't feel that that was relevant to. You know, if you're reading up front.
- [66:18]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I remember him as. I mean, it's.
- [66:19]
Detective Brian Miller
There's another one where you guys are parked at a DNR range there a lot, and it says, going back to the crime scene.
- [66:27]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Like I said, it's a joke.
- [66:30]
Detective Brian Miller
This isn't a fucking joke.
- [66:32]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I understand.
- [66:34]
Detective Brian Miller
You got to be kidding me with this.
- [66:35]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Look, I understand, but these are just jokes. I mean, this is dark humor.
- [66:40]
Detective Brian Miller
I hope you're 100% sure about that, because you know what? It looks like a hate crime now, man.
- [66:46]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
There's no.
- [66:47]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
They have no reason to do that. Absolutely not. Look, he's making jokes. That's all that is.
- [66:54]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
It's worth pointing out here that just a few minutes before, Tom had said there weren't any text messages on the phone between him and Rob. He backtracked later and said there might be WhatsApp messages, but he wasn't even sure about that.
- [67:06]
Detective Brian Miller
So everybody knows that Rob just makes racist jokes about murdering people.
- [67:11]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Rob's gonna take anything and make a.
- [67:13]
Detective Brian Miller
Joke reward for him. No way. Lmao. Haven't caught you. US One suspect has fled the country.
- [67:23]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
That's a joke. These are all jokes.
- [67:26]
Detective Brian Miller
Once in a while is a joke. This isn't a fucking joke, man.
- [67:29]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I'm just. That's what I'm saying. I mean, these are all jokes.
- [67:33]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
You're lying.
- [67:33]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I'm not lying about anything.
- [67:35]
Josh Smith (Montana Knife Company Founder / Ad Host)
I don't know what you mean.
- [67:36]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Tom, who shot this guy?
- [67:38]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Look, I don't know. I'm telling you the truth. Everything said in there is just in jest as a dark joke. I do not know anything that happened other than what I've already told you.
- [67:51]
Detective Brian Miller
Was it you? Was it Rob? Is that something? We just.
- [67:55]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I mean, I know it wasn't me for sure, and I'm almost 100% positive that how could it have been Rob?
- [68:02]
Detective Brian Miller
I mean, this is. We should chew cops over here as a protest, then put Jews in ghettos. Goddamn Jews. I mean, we killed that guy. You don't see us crying about it. The joke, Tom. This isn't a joke. This is over. This is over, man. I'm sorry, but you need to see the fucking light here.
- [68:21]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Look, these are all jokes. I mean, this is just the sense of humor.
- [68:25]
Detective Brian Miller
So you were the only two out there in the woods when this guy was killed. And then you talk about it constantly and how you murdered him, and it's just a joke.
- [68:35]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
It's all jokes?
- [68:36]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Yes. When Rob was asked about these text messages about a week later, he said pretty much the same thing.
- [68:42]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
It's a complete joke. I know that you guys look at that and say, oh, we're gonna go chase this league because these guys did it. That's our sick humor. Because obviously, yeah, that's. You know, I understand the past Legacy guys have seen. If you've got from his phone between him and us, do not look good, but there's nothing behind it. Okay, so these are just two close friends being idiots.
- [69:03]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
In some of these texts, Tom and Rob joke about Detective Miller's investigation. You can see why they'd be talking about being investigated for murder. But Agent McIntyre points out that they were talking about Chong long before they came under any kind of legal scrutiny. In one text From September of 2020, they shared an image of one of the reward posters my view had made. In another text from April of that year, Tom sent Rob a picture of the pair of them in hunting gear standing in a DNR parking lot. The text under the photo said, a couple of cold blooded killers revisiting the crime scene.
- [69:38]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
We have different humor than other people. It is a not tasteful joke. It's not tasteful. I understand. If this got released to the public. These guys are complete assholes. I understand it. But we are close friends. If there's any questioning about the text messages, that's a blanket statement for it. We can go into each text message and say, I'm sure there's plenty of stuff you guys can say. I know what we text each other. People could look at it like, oh, these guys freaking did it. We're joking. We were joking.
- [70:07]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That's it. Detective Miller was clearly not buying Rob's excuse. He had the pair near the crime scene on the night of the murder. They appeared to be lying about speaking to a police officer. Tom had taken a suspiciously meandering route back home, and now they'd been caught either joking about murdering Chong or actually confessing to the crime. It would only take two more pieces of evidence, one nearly overlooked item from the the crime scene and one digital trail that couldn't be laughed away to finally push this investigation out of the shadows and into a courtroom. That's next after the break.
- [70:56]
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- [72:19]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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- [74:01]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Part five. The trial. Things didn't look good for Rob Rodway and Tom Olsen, but it was about to get even worse, Especially for Tom. Remember that bottle of scent Killer detectives had collected about 300 yards from the crime scene? The one they found by following the same kind of boot prints discovered around Chung's body? They compared the DNA on that bottle to Tom's, and it was a match. This didn't prove definitively that Tom had been to the crime scene, but it did provide yet another piece of evidence linking Tom to the murder.
- [74:38]
Detective Brian Miller
What did you drop in the woods?
- [74:40]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
A water bottle. And I think. I don't know if it fell out or not, but I had deer spray in the back.
- [74:47]
Detective Brian Miller
Where do you think that fell out at, Tom?
- [74:49]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I don't know. Back there somewhere.
- [74:51]
Detective Brian Miller
There was only two sets of footprints there.
- [74:54]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Okay.
- [74:55]
Detective Brian Miller
And one of them didn't return.
- [74:58]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I don't. I mean, I've told you.
- [74:59]
Detective Brian Miller
Come on, man, connect the dots.
- [75:01]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
There's nothing that more that I can say. I mean, I've told you everything.
- [75:04]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
That Detective Miller hadn't confiscated either man's phone by the time of this interview. But after some haggling, Tom agreed to surrender his phone that day. Rob also had his phone confiscated. And what they found provided the final piece of evidence they needed before going to trial. Rob's Google account search history only went back to 2021, so that wasn't much use to investigators. But Tom's history went back to the days surrounding Chong's murder. And much like the text messages, it told a concerning story. Remember, Chong was murdered on November 16, which was a Friday. The local news didn't start reporting that a hunter had been killed at rose Lake until November 18th. But on November 17th, Tom searched for Bath Township Police Twitter four times. Clinton County Sheriff twice, and the term missing hunter twice. The next day, he searched Bath Township police Twitter another four times. The term hunter killed once. And he read five different articles about Chung's death, all on the same day. He continued this pattern of search history over the next week, but he also looked up Roth, IRA early withdrawal penalty and deferred comp withdrawal, along with queries like United States and Costa Rica, extradition treaty and US lawsuit living in Costa Rica. On March 19, 2020, Tom searched how to delete WhatsApp group messages. And if I delete a message from WhatsApp group chat, will they get deleted? On July 2, 2020, he searched discarding Sabo and Sabo round. All these searches were conducted prior to him knowing about being under investigation for Chong's murder. Now, you might argue that those searches just proved that Tom was interested in a local crime story. Tom said he'd seen police cars at Rose Lake the morning after their first hunt, and he'd even spoken to an officer. If his story is true, it makes sense that he'd search for Bath Township's Twitter feed to find out what had happened. But as Detective Miller said about the text messages, one or two searches make sense. Tom and Rob seem to be obsessed with this case. And that, combined with the other evidence, convinced prosecutors with the Michigan Attorney General's office to move forward with charges. On December 22, 2022, the Michigan AG's office announced that Tom and Rob had had both been arrested for one count of felony murder and one count of felony firearm. I asked Maivu what it was like after four years of waiting to see someone arrested for the murder of her father.
- [77:47]
My Vu Yang
All the years that we've been trying to find answers from my dad, you know, everybody always asks me like, have you ever seen these two individuals? What would you say to them? And I always say, like, I don't know what I will say. I just want to look them in the eyes and say if they're human, you know what I mean? Like, how could you leave an elderly 68 year old man shot in the back of the head, lying in the cold snow and just let him die? I just want to see if they were human, you know, so to see that they both were very human, it just made it a lot harder, I guess. And just to know, like, they were not that much older than I am, we're like in the same age group. It just kind of like, it was really hard to believe, like, that this.
- [78:29]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Is happening, but it was happening. And as Maivu explained, it was like closing one chapter in a book and opening another. Detective Miller had sent all the evidence he'd collected to the AG's office. And it was up to them to put it all together in a way that would convince a jury. Based on what you've heard so far, that might not sound like a heavy lift. But nine months after they'd arrested Rob Broadway and one day before his trial was set to begin, the AG's office made a shocking announcement. A man charged with the murder of a hunter in Bath Township Five years ago is free. Tonight, the charges against Robert Rodway in Clinton county were dropped this morning. Rodway's attorney tells News 10 he was released from jail this morning. The case was dismissed without prejudice, which.
- [79:15]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Means those charges can be refiled in the future.
- [79:19]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
This is one part of the case I'm still trying to wrap my head around. I asked Joseph Yang about it, and he explained that the decision was largely due to the fact that investigators were able to scrape more information from Tom's phone than from Rob's.
- [79:33]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
They do not have the text messages directly off of Rodway's phone. It's just off of Olson's phone. And so that's where the judge created that barrier, because Olson's phone was, here you go, do what you want, look at what you want. Rodaway's phone was a search warrant, and they were not able to get that information off of his phone. And so because of that, judge felt like only Olsen can have 100%, whereas if they want to use those text messages for Rodway, they can, but only Rodway's words and not Olson's words.
- [80:06]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
You can see how important those text messages were for the prosecution. While prosecutors acknowledged that some of the messages could have been made in jest, Joseph takes them more seriously.
- [80:17]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
To me, it was tantamount to a confession. Two cold blooded killers going back to the scene of the crime. We killed that guy. You don't see us crying. Like, to me, that's tantamount to a confession. And the defense tried to blame it as kind of dark humor and stuff. You know, dark humor is a one off comment, not a continuous conversation, continuously going back to the scene of the crime.
- [80:41]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
It's a strong argument, but it's not bulletproof, as prosecutors discovered during Tom Olson's trial. The trial began with opening arguments on Tuesday, February 13, 2024, and ended nine days later. Tom's father is an attorney, and so he was able to hire a team of lawyers to defend his son. On the other side of the case, Michigan Assistant Attorney General Richard Cunningham argued for the people. Cunningham had a steep hill to climb. Most of the evidence against Tom was circumstantial. They hadn't found Chung's gun, backpack, or knife. Tom's DNA wasn't found anywhere on Chung's body. And they'd never found boots in Tom's possession that matched the prints at the crime scene. They'd never found the murder weapon or even identified the caliber or projectile. The texts and Google searches were damning, but if you squint and tilt Your head could be explained. One of Tom's lawyers, a man named Michael Manley, argued that the evidence wasn't strong enough to dispel all reasonable doubt, which is the standard for convicting someone of murder.
- [81:47]
Detective Brian Miller
There is zero evidence linking Mr. Olsen to this crime.
- [81:53]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
There is no eyewitness, none that says.
- [81:56]
Detective Brian Miller
Mr. Olsen did this.
- [81:58]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
There is zero DNA that links Mr. Olson to this crime. One of the most important pieces of evidence the defense submitted was a photo Tom took the day of Chong's death. It showed the top of the boot he was wearing, and an FBI analysis confirmed that they weren't Swamp Tracker boots. You knew exactly what boot he was wearing on the 16th, so to speak. Say we didn't know what boot he was wearing is mistaken. It's mistaken. It says 1116, 20, 18. And in my opening, I said that picture might have saved his life. Given the arguments that are being made, that picture may have saved his life. Now, this isn't exactly true, either. The FBI determined that Tom wasn't wearing a Swamp Tracker boot, but they couldn't positively identify an exact make and model of the boot he was wearing. The Olsens claim the Frogg Tog waders that they'd supposedly found in Tom's car several years later were the same ones he was wearing that day. That could be true, based on the photo, but the fact is, no one could prove one way or the other what the tread on Tom's boot looked like on the day of the murder. The prosecution also submitted evidence to suggest the Swamp Tracker pattern had been copied and ripped off by other companies. So even if Tom's boot wasn't a field and stream, it could have used the same tread pattern. What we do know is that the scent spray found in the woods was Tom Olson's. And there was only one set of prints leading to and from that plastic bag. Either Tom dropped it there, which would suggest he was also walking around Chung's body, or the murderer picked it up somewhere else in the woods and dropped it. On the other side of the ledger, the prosecution called a witness who said he'd seen seen two men walking along Clark Road on the night of the murder. They matched the description of Tom and Rob, and crucially, one of them was carrying two firearms and wearing sneakers. Remember, Tom and Rob both said that they'd had to walk back down Clark Road that night to get to their cars. Here's Agent McIntyre asking Tom about that witness testimony.
- [84:11]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Tom, we've spoken to somebody who said that they saw two individuals that night walking on the side of the road.
- [84:17]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
And with three guns.
- [84:18]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I mean, I had mine and Rob had his.
- [84:22]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
He only had one for.
- [84:24]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
I can recollect. Yeah. I mean, I think it would be weird if he had an extra.
- [84:27]
Detective Brian Miller
Now, now you remember what the victim's car was, but you don't remember if he had two guns. You don't remember if, like, the. The details don't match up. Tom.
- [84:37]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
Okay, let me. To the best of my knowledge, Rob had one gun, and it would be weird to me if he had an extra gun.
- [84:43]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Unfortunately for the prosecution, the defense was able to poke some holes in that testimony. The witness who claimed to have seen the two men had initially said he saw them around 9pm But Tom's phone showed him driving home well before this. The witness later changed his statement to say he was driving home about two hours after sunset, which would have been around the right time. But his shifting timetables likely didn't play well with the jury and gave Tom's defense a leg to stand on when they said there were no witnesses to the crime. The defense also spent a long time pointing out the lack of ballistic evidence. In this case, zero ballistics.
- [85:24]
Detective Brian Miller
In this case, zero. Now we did it.
- [85:27]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
First time the detective ever saw the ballistics sticks was when we showed it to him. What Manley is referencing here is a video that was played during the trial that shows a ballistic dummy head being shot with a 12 gauge shotgun slug from about 50ft away. These are sophisticated ballistic dummy heads. He saw it for the first time of what? A 12 gauge shotgun. I thought, unfortunately, it reminded me me of President Kennedy in the Zapruder film. The defense argued that if Tom had shot Chung, it would have caused a much larger wound. They also used the opportunity to bring up the fact that Jack Kuhn had a.45 caliber muzzleloader at his home, which the defense said would have caused a wound more consistent with the one found in Chung's head. The problem was, as the forensic pathologist pointed out, this experiment relied on a lot of assessments, assumptions. First, there's nothing to say the slug had been fired from 50ft away. Chong was shot in a wooded area. But there's a large open space about 100 yards to the west and clearings to the south and east. Second, as Dr. Wilson testified, and as most hunters know, it's incredibly difficult to predict what a bullet will do once it makes contact with skin, muscle, and bone. The wound can change based on the elasticity of the skin, whether the bullet hits a bone, the structure of that bone, and of course, how fast the bullet is traveling. Here's assistant AG.
- [87:03]
Michigan Assistant Attorney General Richard Cunningham
To have some indication of some off the wall demonstration that's scientifically unreliable would not be something to be followed up on. How do we know it's scientifically not reliable? Dr. Wilson, she says there's no way in the world you can tell what kind of caliber made that. That hole.
- [87:27]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
The boots, the witness and the ballistics were important parts of the trial, but what everyone really wanted to hear was how each side would handle the text messages. Text messages, jokes.
- [87:39]
Detective Brian Miller
They weren't even funny.
- [87:40]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
And when it started to get serious.
- [87:43]
Detective Brian Miller
They'Re like, hey, we need to tell the truth, cooperate.
- [87:45]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Detective Miller read it and said, hey, don't worry.
- [87:48]
Detective Brian Miller
They're going to do ballistics.
- [87:50]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
It'll clear us well, we're fine. And then they don't do ballistics. And here we are. The defense acknowledged that Tom and Rob sent disgusting, racist texts, but they claimed that the men were joking. And as you just heard, Manley reference, they also submitted other texts between the pair that seemed to suggest their innocence. One text from Tom to Rob said, quote, but after calling my dad, we decided not to, as it sounded like they were doing ballistics anyway, which is what will clear us regardless. Another read, quote, I gave them everything, since we have nothing to hide anyway. In another, Rob tells Tom that he's, quote, shocked that the investigation is real, and Tom responds, just be open with them. It's easy to just be honest, obviously for us, since we already told them the truth. At one point, Rob tells Tom that he's been contacted by the police, and Tom says, quote, unquote, what the hell? That's weird. Rob responds, this is how people get wrongly convicted. To which Tom replies, they're probably following up from last year. My dad will bring the hammer down. Lol. All of those exchanges happened after both men knew they were being investigated. So depending on how smart you think they are, it's plausible they could be laying the groundwork for exactly this defense. But if that's not the case, these messages do indeed point towards innocence. The prosecution mostly just allowed Tom's words to speak for themselves. However, they also used those texts and his defense of them as a joke to construct a crucial part of this story. We still haven't mentioned motive. What exactly happened in those woods? If Tom did what the prosecution says he did, what motivated him to pull the trigger?
- [89:40]
Michigan Assistant Attorney General Richard Cunningham
Here's ag I don't think there's an intent to kill. I don't think there's an intent to do great, badly harm. I think that the Evidence shows, and the reasonable inferences coming from the evidence is that there was an intent to create this high risk of death or great bodily harm. Because he's going to be, with his frat humor, scare the devil out of this little Chinaman. Boom. That's what he's all about. Do you think he was more surprised than ever? Was it an accident? Of course it wasn't an accident. If it was an accident, you would have heard a 911 call. Hey, my gun went off accidentally. We're not talking about an accident here. We're talking about intentionally firing in a certain direction, creating a high risk of death or great bodily harm.
- [90:31]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Notice the needle that Cunningham is trying to thread. They couldn't argue for first degree murder since there was no evidence that Tom had planned Chung's death. But the theft of the gun indicated that it wasn't an innocent mistake. So Cunningham aimed instead for second degree murder, which someone can be convicted of if they act with extreme indifference for human life. The example that's often used is firing a gun into a crowd of people without intending to kill anyone in person particular. That's the scenario the prosecution put forward, and they used Tom's texts as evidence.
- [91:07]
Michigan Assistant Attorney General Richard Cunningham
Depraved indifference is a term we often use. I just don't care. He's just a Chinaman. He's just a chink, as he calls it. Yeah, I'll scare the devil on. This is going to be great, great fun to go and tell my frat boys, hey, I scared the devil out of this guy. He's out there. I could see, see him. He's wearing his headlamp. He's got his flashlight. He's pretty easy target. You know, I just shoot above. Above his head. I'll knock a branch off. That's when what happened?
- [91:37]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Tom, the prosecution said, killed Chung for a laugh. He'd been joking about the man's death for the last six years. And that joke started on November 16, 2018. The jury deliberated for a day and a half and came back with a verdict on February 22 of last year.
- [91:57]
Tom Olson (Suspect)
All rise for the jury.
- [92:00]
My Vu Yang
Juror number five.
- [92:01]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Four.
- [92:01]
My Vu Yang
Person, did the jury reach a verdict? Yes, we have. Is the verdict unanimous? Yes, it is. Please read the verdict. On count one, we find the defendant guilty of second degree murder. And on count two, we find the defendant guilty of a possession of a firearm during the condition of a felon.
- [92:24]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
All right, thank you.
- [92:24]
My Vu Yang
For person, is that your verdict? Yes, it is.
- [92:27]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
You may be seated. At a hearing a few months later, Tom was sentenced to 22 and a half to 60 years in prison. He is currently being held at the Oaks Correctional Facility in Manisty, Michigan, and his earliest Release date is October 19th, 2047.
- [92:45]
My Vu Yang
Was that your verdict?
- [92:46]
Brent (Ad Host)
Yes.
- [92:47]
My Vu Yang
Juror number two, was that your verdict?
- [92:49]
FBI Special Agent Reese McIntyre
Yes.
- [92:49]
My Vu Yang
Juror number three, was that your verdict?
- [92:52]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Yes.
- [92:52]
My Vu Yang
Juror number four, was that your verdict?
- [93:07]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Part six. What happens next? Olsen's family is hoping to get him out of prison much earlier than that. They maintain his innocence, and they've launched a crowdfunding campaign to help pay for his legal fees. They hired a new team of lawyers, and earlier this year, they submitted a motion for a retrial. In the motion, Olsen's attorneys argue that there wasn't enough evidence to convict their client. But they also submit new evidence they say is exonerating. They say they found the all lead 12 gauge slugs Olson hunted with on the day of the murder. They submitted a purchase receipt from a sporting goods store, and Olson's father signed an affidavit claiming that his son stored that box of slugs at his house. He also says none of the slugs had been used. If those are indeed the slugs Olson was using that day, the lack of copper jacket would mean they probably weren't the projectiles that killed Chong. Olson's attorney also submitted a purchase receipt from Dunham's showing that Tom bought Frogg Tog waders prior to the day of the incident. The judge issued her decision just a few weeks ago, but she said there was ample evidence to convict Tom. She also didn't think the new evidence was convincing enough to justify a retrial. Tom may have purchased those all lead slugs prior to the incident, but that doesn't mean he used them on that day. She denied his motion for a retrial, and his attorneys have already filed their case in the court of appeals.
- [94:40]
My Vu Yang
Yeah, they already filed with a court of appeals, the AG and the victim advocate. They're gonna keep us updated. So, again, like, that's why I'm just, like. I guess it's not even the word celebrate. I can't even, like, live knowing, like, we still got this to go through. Like, I'm not done yet. We still have court of appeals to go to, and every time they sit in the same room as him, it's nerve wracking. And to be around his family members is nerve wracking, too, Just because of the way some of them treated us in court was, like, really not nice.
- [95:10]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
I reached out to Sam Olson, Tom's brother and the one who organized his crowdfunding efforts, but he declined to be interviewed for this episode. Tom's case isn't over, and technically, Rob's could restart at any time.
- [95:24]
Joseph Yang (Family Attorney)
There's no statute of limitations in Michigan for murder. You know, if additional evidence comes out and they're able to charge again, they will. I've talked to the prosecutor about that, and I've explained to the family about that. Like, there's no statute of limitations. So if additional evidence comes out that the prosecutors feel like they can, that's actionable on, they. They will take action on it.
- [95:43]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
I reached out to Rob for comment, but didn't receive a response. I'm not sure Rob still lives in the Lansing area, but my view remains concerned for her family's safety.
- [95:53]
My Vu Yang
You know, I did send a little alert to everybody's, like, hey, be careful. Like, Rodri's still out there hunting. You know, he shouldn't be around a gun. And so it does bother me. And when Rodri was out, you know, because Rodri was no longer going to trial, it always worried me, like, if him and Olsen was gonna still contact each other. And, you know, that was also another very, like, thing that scared me too. Like, well, he's out here. An oath is in there. Could they be doing something to us?
- [96:22]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Despite her fears of the two men she believes killed her father, Maivu told me she appreciates everyone in the Lansing community for coming around her and her family and supporting them through the most difficult thing any family can go through.
- [96:35]
My Vu Yang
I would say, like, in Lansing, you know, you don't have the. Everybody's really friendly with each other. You know, there's plenty of times where white hunters will help my dad, and there were times when my dad helped white hunters or any color hunters. Like, I think that's the problem we had in Lansing was because the community is, like, so loving that when this happened, it was kind of, like, shocking that these guys are being really racist towards my dad with their text messages, because all the years that we were there, we rarely encounter any of that.
- [97:04]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
For Ya and Yia Chong's story hits extremely close to home in this case.
- [97:10]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
We'Re talking about right now in 2018, when that happened, I remember, too, it's still kind of like the same message went out, you know, like, through social media. So you're a monk person. If you're hunting whatever, stay out of the woods.
- [97:20]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Fortunately, that very understandable fear failed to keep either man out of the woods very long. Ya was planning a deer hunt the evening we spoke, and YA texted me a photo of a squirrel hunt a few days after. Even though Chong's case highlights the potential for violence and division, Yia said he sees the larger arc of the Hmong strike story in the US as trending towards unity.
- [97:44]
Ya Yang / Yah (Hmong Community Members)
What the Hmong people have gone through and what the Hmong people are looking for, it's not exclusively to Hmong people. It's a human thing. Mom and dad really showed me that at a young age. All the hurt and all the pain that our people have gone through, our family have gone through, it just it's not us. It's everybody goes through this. And if somehow we can use this as the way to connect, if we can use pain and hurt and suffering to connect to others who are hurt and suffering and they might not look like us, maybe we get to see them as the same as us. And so what I guess what I want to get out of all this is saying, hey, look, there's a lot of biased stuff from both sides, but I think that fear begets fear, that begets more fear. And this is one of the things I love about the outdoors and hunting. It's not like, oh, this is a white man thing or a black man thing or a Mexican man thing, like hunting outdoors and stuff. That's a human thing. There's something innate in nature, in us.
- [98:44]
Narrator / Jordan Sillers
Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If you'd like to see images from this episode, including photos of Chong, maps of the Rose Lake Wildlife area, and screenshots of Tom and Rob's text messages, head over to themateater.com BloodTrails Big thanks to Myvu Yang, Joseph Yang, Ya Yang Yang, and Kristi Colby, who is a saint among office managers over at the Bath Township Police Department. I am sorry to say that this is our final episode in Season one. I can't thank you enough for all the kind emails and messages. It's an honor to bring you these stories and I don't do it alone. Jake Burch is the genius behind the sound design, Nick Glenn is the Spielberg behind the video version of the podcast podcast, and Reva Hansen is the wizard who orchestrated the rollout of Blood Trails and just generally brings order to the chaos. Another big thanks to Corinne Schneider for green lighting Blood Trails and supporting it from the very beginning, and to Steve Rinella for his advice and direction throughout. If, like me, you're disappointed that season one is ending, I do have some good news. Thanks in part to all the incredible tips you sent in to Blood trails@the meateater.com I'm happy to say that season two is already in the works. We'll release more episodes next spring and I can't wait to bring them to you. We'll also release standalone episodes if there are any updates on any of the cases we covered this season. If Detective Pointon hears back about the John Wayne Gacy DNA test, if Sheriff Larson makes an arrest for the murder of Terry Brisk, or if law enforcement finds more victims of Paul Hutchinson will be sure to let you know to make sure you're notified as soon as a new episode drops. Remember to follow blood trails on iHeart, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time. Stay safe out there. With Venmo Stash A taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the.
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Narrator / Jordan Sillers
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