(ominous music) - [Narrator] Though we have recently seen a remarkable number of cold cases and missing persons solved, some cases are still shrouded in mystery and questions decades
after they first began. And sometimes these cases
gain notorious reputations for haunting those who
have tried to solve them. What is up, EWU crew? We are taking a look at a
case that has done just that. Today's case is one of the oldest unsolved missing persons
cases in Minnesota. And with each year that passes, it has only become more of a mystery. Let's get into it. On January 12th, 1993, a
17-year-old girl named Hang Lee left her family's apartment
in St. Paul, Minnesota to interview for a new job. It was a cold, dark night,
and the Midwestern capital had just received its first
major snowfall of the season. This was the night everything went wrong. Hang Lee was born on October
9th, 1975 in a refugee camp in the small Southeast
Asian country of Laos. Her parents were from
the Hmong ethnic group. During the United States involvement in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and '70s, the Hmong people often allied
themselves with the Americans to fight against the North
Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao. After the defeat of the United
States-backed Hmong forces in the so-called secret
war, a civil war in Laos, many of the Hmong people
faced severe persecution from the Laotian government, and they fled to refugee
camps within the country and in neighboring Thailand. Hang Lee's parents were
among these refugees. Her family moved to the United States shortly after Hang was born, and like many other Hmong families, they settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. As refugees, Hang's family was quite poor, and her parents did
not speak much English. They lived in public housing in the North End neighborhood of St. Paul. Despite this, by January, 1993, Hang was an accomplished student at Highland Park High School, and she was looking forward to attending the University of
Minnesota the following year. She was a gifted storyteller
with hopes to use her talents to write about the Hmong
experience in the United States. Her family and coworkers described
her as a quiet and sweet, but somewhat naive girl who
often fell for practical jokes. Hang worked part time as
a cashier and dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant called Wong Cafe to help provide for her
parents and siblings. As she was not making very much money from her job at the restaurant, she began asking her friends
about other job opportunities. Her friend Kia Lee, no immediate relation, known as Nikki, was
working as a receptionist for a painting and carpentry business located on the East Side of St. Paul. And she mentioned to Hang
that they were looking for a new employee. Hang jumped at this opportunity, and Nikki offered to
introduce her to her employer. Although Hang and Nikki were friends, a later police report revealed
that there is some evidence that Hang suspected Nikki may
have had ulterior motives. On that January night, just before she left
for her job interview, Hang turned to her younger
brother, 15-year-old Koua and said, "If I don't come
back, come and look for me." Despite this suspicion,
Hang left the house anyway. She was last seen wearing
a black leather jacket, black pants and a t-shirt from the heavy metal band Skid Row, her long, black hair teased
into a typical early '90s style. Hang's instincts would
prove to be correct. She didn't return home
after the interview, and there was no sign of
her over the next few days. It eventually became clear that something had happened to Hang, but her parents had a difficult
time reporting her missing because of their limited English. The police initially dismissed her case as a teenage runaway, but upon investigating her bedroom, they quickly found evidence that pointed to something more sinister. Hang had been saving money for college, and she left it all at home on the night of her disappearance. Her boss at Wong Cafe reported that she had not come to the restaurant to work her scheduled shifts, which was unusual for Hang, and that she hadn't even come in to pick up her most recent paycheck. Hang had also left her purse at home, which contained a knife and a lead ball that she usually carried for self-defense. If she was actually a
runaway, it was unthinkable that she would have left without
her money and belongings. Hang's brother Kuoa told police about his suspicions concerning
Hang's friend, Nikki Lee. And the police began asking
Nikki about Hang's whereabouts. According to police records,
during their interviews Nikki gave two vastly different accounts of what had transpired that night. At first, she told detectives that Hang had not actually attended
the job interview and instead left with a group
of men she did not recognize. This seemed to confirm the
police's original hunch that Hang was another teenage runaway. However, several months later, Nikki changed her story completely. She would go on to claim
that she made up the story about Hang running away
with the unknown men. She admitted that she
had done this in part out of wishful thinking, and in part because she claimed that her
boss had instructed her to lie, and she reportedly feared
retribution from him. Nikki said she hoped
that Hang had, in fact, run away from home and
therefore would return someday. But that wasn't the case. The business where Nikki worked was owned by a man named
Mark Steven Wallace. Before Hang's disappearance,
Wallace asked Nikki if she had any friends who
were looking for a job, and she immediately suggested Hang. Nikki would later say that she thought this was very unusual. The painting and carpentry
business had very few customers, and Nikki hardly ever had any work to do. She didn't understand why Wallace would need another employee. There were a few other things
about Wallace's business that Nikki reportedly found troubling. Although there were never
any customers or clients, she reported to police that young teenage boys would
occasionally visit the office. She told investigators that Wallace would take these
young boys into his office and lock the door behind them, although she did not elaborate
further on this point Nikki also reported that Wallace had frequently
talked to her about modeling. According to Nikki, he
said that he had a friend who could find modeling work for her. And Wallace took some photographs of her to show to this friend. Nothing ever came of this,
and Nikki never found out what happened to the photographs. Nevertheless, despite
these apparent red flags, she had known that Hang
needed a better paying job and offered to introduce her to Wallace. After Nikki changed her story,
she told police officers that on the night of Hang's disappearance, Wallace had taken her
and Hang to his office. Nikki's new story to police was that after Hang's job interview, Wallace offered to give the
two young women a ride home in his truck. They all got into his white
pickup truck and drove off. He said that he would drop
Nikki off at her house and then take Hang back to her home. At some point, for reasons
that were never made clear, Wallace reportedly
instructed Nikki and Hang to get out of the truck
and into a Chevy Cavalier. He drove with Nikki in the passenger seat, while Hang sat in the back. Wallace then dropped
Nikki off at her house in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul. When Nikki exited the car, Hang
climbed into the front seat. That was the last time Nikki saw Hang. Nikki later hired a lawyer and refused to continue speaking with the police or the media. And Wallace would soon be named by police as a key person of interest
in Hang's disappearance. A few months later, as police in St. Paul continued investigating the case, their records reveal that they realized that Mark Steven Wallace
had been convicted of two sexual assaults in the
neighboring Washington County. He had served time in prison for both of the assaults
that he committed in 1987. One of the assaults was
of a 16-year-old girl. Police records reveal Wallace
allegedly told the girl that he had a job offer for her. Reportedly, Wallace had picked the girl up and taken her to where he said
the interview was to occur. But when they arrived, police say that he bound
and assaulted the girl. Records reveal that he held a knife to her and allegedly threatened
that he would kill her and her family if she told anyone. Wallace was arrested by an
undercover police officer, who he also reportedly approached with a similar proposition. In 1988, he was convicted
and sentenced to prison for two counts of first degree assault, and he served a little under three years. He was let out on a supervised release, and his sentence since expired a week before Hang went missing. When the police finally had
the chance to talk to Wallace about Hang's disappearance, he admitted that he did indeed
interview her on that night. After the interview, he said that he dropped Nikki off
at her house in Frogtown and then dropped Hang
off at the intersection of Rice Street and Wheelock Parkway near the restaurant where she worked. This seemed to corroborate Nikki's story, although it did not bring
the police much closer to figuring out Hang's whereabouts. Wallace then hired a lawyer and stopped cooperating with the police. Although police never closed the case, Hang Lee's disappearance
fell into obscurity until a potential lead
emerged 16 years later. Though there was still no sign of Hang, in 2009, there was a
potential break in the case. Mark Wallace's house, located
in the suburb of Maplewood, had gone into foreclosure. With Wallace no longer in
possession of the home, the police had the opportunity
to conduct a search. The police received
permission from the bank to search the property,
using a team of cadaver dogs. Reportedly the dogs showed a
lot of interest in the garage and led investigators to
the back of the structure. It was there that all three
dogs appeared to police to indicate that there
could be human remains beneath the concrete floor. This was sufficient
evidence to get a warrant, and officers then drilled holes
into the floor of the garage to help the cadaver dogs
more accurately locate any human remains that might
have been buried underneath. After drilling through the floor, the cadaver dogs were brought back in. But this time, only one of the
dogs smelled human remains. This was not enough evidence to justify excavating the garage, and the police then
stopped their investigation of Mark Wallace's house. Another break in the case came in 2016, 23 years after Hang Lee's disappearance and seven years after the police investigated Mark Wallace's property. In August, 2016, Wallace
fled a traffic stop near his new home in Andover, which is about 20 miles north of St. Paul. Police then discovered Wallace's car parked at the Key Inn Motel in Woodbury. When police arrived at the motel, they kicked down the door of
the room he was staying in, where they found Wallace with a frightened 20-year-old woman. Wallace was arrested when
he tried to flee the room. The woman, who has never been identified, told police that Wallace was the father of one of her friends from high school. She said that she did not
have a permanent home, and that Wallace had agreed
to let her stay with him. And in exchange, she did his housework. For a time, it seemed
like this arrangement was going to work, but the
situation reportedly soured. According to a police
complaint that the woman filed, Wallace allegedly physically
and verbally attacked her. She eventually filed a
no-contact order against him. Wallace was never accused of
sexually assaulting the woman, but when police found
her in the motel room, they found evidence that
she had been beaten, bruised and malnourished. Wallace was charged with felony kidnapping to commit great bodily
harm, felony stalking and misdemeanor drug possession. The stalking and drug
charges were later dropped, and Wallace was convicted and sentenced to 54 months in prison for the kidnapping. Hang Lee's disappearance had largely been forgotten by the media prior to the 2016 kidnapping. But the trial and conviction
renewed interest in her case because of allegations that
the kidnapping survivor revealed to the police. She told the police that she had known about Hang Lee's disappearance
and that she knew Wallace had been a person
of interest in that case. She reportedly claimed that she had asked Wallace about Hang Lee. Police documents state
that the woman alleged that Wallace told her
Hang entered his business, quote, "and never came out." The complaint also stated
that the woman claimed that Wallace warned her
that he would do to her what he did to Hang, and
that he allegedly told her that he knew how to get rid
of blood and cut through bone. Authorities from Washington County, where Wallace was tried and convicted, passed this information along to the St. Paul Police Department. St. Paul police did not comment on the woman's statements
or Wallace's conviction, but Hang Lee's case is still open. In August, 2019, after his
prison sentence was complete, a court in Anoka County,
where Mark Wallace lived, had him committed to a treatment program. The court's decision cited both his 2016 conviction for kidnapping and his 1988 convictions for assault and testimony from psychiatrists who described him as a dangerous person and a psychopathic personality. In September, 2020, Mark
Wallace appealed his commitment, but the court upheld their decision on the basis of his previous convictions. He is currently held as a
patient at the treatment center. Mark Steven Wallace is still
considered a person of interest in Hang Lee's disappearance, but he has never been
officially named as a suspect. Hang Lee's Hmong heritage
was very important to her. A traditional part of Hmong shamanism is the (speaking in foreign language) or spirit release ceremony, in which the soul of a
deceased family member is invited to visit with their
family for one last time. After the ceremony, the loved one's spirit is released for reincarnation. Traditionally, this is done
some time after the funeral. But in missing persons cases, it often isn't held for many years after their disappearance, when the family no longer believes that their loved one will
return in their physical form. Hang Lee's father had refused to hold a (speaking in a
foreign language) in the hopes that police would someday
find his daughter's remains. Before he died in 2013, he told his family that they should probably go ahead and hold the ceremony for Hang. In 2017, her family held a
(speaking in a foreign language) in the hopes of releasing Hang's spirit so that she could be reincarnated. Hang Lee's mother, Chong Vang says that she has forgiven whoever
might have been involved in her daughter's disappearance, but she would like to
know where her body is so that Hang can have a proper funeral. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the St. Paul Police Department.
