Ming Sen Shiue is a Minnesota kidnapper, rapist, and murderer who abducted his former ninth-grade algebra teacher, Mary Stauffer, and her eight-year-old daughter Beth in May 1980, held them captive for 53 days, and beat to death a six-year-old boy, Jason Wilkman, who witnessed the abduction. He is serving concurrent federal and state life sentences, and a Minnesota judge has ordered that if he is ever released, he must be transferred directly to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in Moose Lake and held there indefinitely as a sexually dangerous person.
The 1980 Kidnapping and the Murder of Jason Wilkman
On May 16, 1980, Shiue approached Mary Stauffer and her daughter Beth at gunpoint in the parking lot of Carmen’s Beauty Salon off Cleveland Avenue in Roseville, Minnesota. He forced them into their vehicle and drove to a remote area in Anoka County, where he bound them and locked them in the trunk.1Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Mary Stauffer Kidnapping
Two neighborhood boys saw the abduction happening. One stayed at the front of the car while six-year-old Jason Wilkman walked to the back to look. Shiue grabbed the boy, threw him into the trunk on top of Mary and Beth, and drove to the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. There he took Jason into the woods and beat him to death.2MPR News. Ming Sen Shiue Mary and Beth would not learn what had happened to the boy until their escape weeks later, when a sheriff’s sergeant asked whether he was with them. After his arrest, Shiue led authorities to Jason’s body.
53 Days in a Closet
Shiue kept Mary and Beth Stauffer for 53 days inside a closet in his Roseville home that measured roughly four feet by 21 inches. He removed the inside doorknob and kept the two shackled and chained together. Mary later said Shiue raped her repeatedly throughout the captivity.1Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Mary Stauffer Kidnapping
He used psychological terror to control them, at one point placing a plastic bag over Beth’s body to simulate suffocation as a way of coercing Mary. He also loaded them into a Winnebago and drove them to a job fair in Chicago and a shopping mall in Madison, Wisconsin. That interstate travel later formed the basis of the federal kidnapping charges.3United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. United States v. Ming Sen Shiue, 650 F.2d 919
On July 7, 1980, Mary escaped while Shiue was at work. He had rigged a cable system that allowed the captives some movement inside the room, and she used a hinge pin from the closet door to unfasten it. After freeing themselves, mother and daughter went upstairs and called the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. Mary read out an address she found on a dry cleaning tag in the closet: 1960 North Hamline Avenue. She and Beth hid behind a car on the property until deputies arrived.1Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Mary Stauffer Kidnapping
The Obsession Behind the Crime
Shiue was Taiwanese-American and attended Alexander Ramsey High School in Roseville, where he finished first in his class and was voted “most likely to succeed.”1Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Mary Stauffer Kidnapping Mary Stauffer had been his ninth-grade algebra teacher, and what he later called a “schoolboy crush” grew across 15 years into a fixation.2MPR News. Ming Sen Shiue Psychologist Paul Reitman, who evaluated him, found that Shiue had built a delusional fantasy in which Stauffer loved him and they would “be a family.” His personal writings featured teachers and motherly figures in scenarios that mirrored the crimes he would later commit.4ABC News. Mind Games: The 1980 Kidnapping of Mary Stauffer
He acted on the obsession years before the abduction. In 1975, he went to the Duluth home of Mary’s in-laws, tied up her father-in-law Irv Stauffer Sr. at gunpoint, and threatened to shoot the couple if they contacted police. He had mistaken Mary’s mother-in-law for Mary. The incident went unreported. After learning the Stauffers were living in missionary apartments in Arden Hills, he watched them from the woods, tried to break in through the patio doors with a blowtorch, cut holes in the floor beneath their bed from the storage area below, and obtained a copy of their spare key. He had no formal arrest record before the kidnapping.1Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Mary Stauffer Kidnapping
Federal and State Convictions
Shiue was prosecuted in both federal and state court. In federal court he was charged under 18 U.S.C. ยง 1201 with the kidnapping and interstate transportation of Mary and Beth Stauffer. He raised an insanity defense; the jury convicted him, and he was sentenced to 30 years to life. On June 5, 1981, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the conviction, finding “ample evidence” for a reasonable juror to conclude he was sane at the time of the crime.3United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. United States v. Ming Sen Shiue, 650 F.2d 919
In state court, he was tried for the kidnapping and second-degree murder of Jason Wilkman and received a 40-year sentence. The state and federal sentences run concurrently.5CBS News. Ming Sen Shiue: Terrified Minnesota
The Courtroom Attack on Mary Stauffer
On February 8, 1981, the third day of his state murder trial, Shiue attacked Mary Stauffer in Anoka District Court. At 3:10 p.m., he bolted 20 feet from the defense table to the witness stand, let out what witnesses described as an “animal-like scream,” wrapped his arms around her neck, and slashed her with a modified pocketknife. The blade, about two and a half inches long, had been altered so it could not fold. Stauffer suffered a gash roughly three inches long that ran from the middle of her chin, around the right side of her mouth, and onto her cheek. She was treated at Mercy Hospital and received stitches.6Twin Cities Pioneer Press. A 1981 Headline From Stauffer Abduction Case: Shiue Attacks Mrs. Stauffer
It was not his first courtroom attempt. During the earlier federal trial he had tried to lunge at Stauffer but was stopped by U.S. marshals and FBI agents. Officials investigating the knife attack said Shiue had been patted down before leaving his cell and during recesses but had not been strip-searched.6Twin Cities Pioneer Press. A 1981 Headline From Stauffer Abduction Case: Shiue Attacks Mrs. Stauffer
Civil Commitment and Where He Is Now
As Shiue neared parole eligibility around 2010, Anoka County officials petitioned to have him indefinitely committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in Moose Lake as both a sexually dangerous person and a sexual psychopathic personality.7FindLaw. In re the Civil Commitment of Ming Sen Shiue
A seven-day trial took place in April 2010 before Anoka County District Judge Jenny Walker Jasper. Experts testified that Shiue suffered from sexual sadism, antisocial personality disorder, and a psychosexual disorder marked by obsessive thoughts he could not control. On the first day of trial he publicly apologized to the Stauffer and Wilkman families for the first time, saying he would “never bother her again” and “never hurt my victims in any way.”8Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Ming Sen Shiue Needs Treatment, Experts Say
Mary and Beth Stauffer both testified. Mary told the court that hearing the expert testimony was a “reminder again that we survived only by the grace of God.” Beth, by then a mother herself, told the judge she still feared for the safety of her children. “Everything he ever told us during the kidnapping, he did. I don’t know that I’d let my children go out to a park, to a mall, if he were released.”2MPR News. Ming Sen Shiue
On September 29, 2010, Judge Walker Jasper issued a 40-page ruling finding Shiue met the criteria for commitment as both a sexually dangerous person and a sexual psychopathic personality, and ordered that upon any release from federal prison he be transferred immediately to the Moose Lake facility for indefinite inpatient treatment.9Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Judge Says Killer, Rapist Ming Sen Shiue Can Be Held Indefinitely The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the commitment order on April 26, 2011, citing his lack of treatment, history of violence, absence of a relapse prevention plan, and the rare nature of his sexual sadism diagnosis. The court also noted that Shiue’s “personality type and high intellect could cause him to become more dangerous with age.”10CBS News Minnesota. Appeals Court Upholds Shiue’s Civil Commitment
Shiue has been serving his concurrent life sentences at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.9Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Judge Says Killer, Rapist Ming Sen Shiue Can Be Held Indefinitely Parole has been denied, with reviewers citing his lack of a release plan and the likelihood of further offenses. If he is ever paroled or completes his federal sentence, the civil commitment order sends him directly to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program at Moose Lake, a program from which very few people have ever been fully discharged.10CBS News Minnesota. Appeals Court Upholds Shiue’s Civil Commitment