WAUSAU – The lone suspect in a Wausau-area shooting spree that left four people dead, including an Everest Metro police detective, has died, officials confirmed early Saturday.
Nengmy Vang, 45, of Weston, was pronounced dead at 1:28 a.m. today, said Wisconsin Department of Justice spokesman Johnny Koremenos.
Vang’s death comes just days after thousands of mourners paid tribute to the fallen officer, Jason T. Weiland of the Everest Metro Police Department. In a March 30 Facebook post, Marathon County Sheriff Scott Parks said that 670 marked and unmarked patrol cars along with 10 law enforcement motorcycles made up the six-mile procession honoring Weiland, who was laid to rest on Wednesday.
The tragedy began just after 12:30 p.m. on March 23 when employees at a Rothschild restaurant called police and said a woman was claiming her husband was going to kill her, and was at a nearby bank with a gun in his car, according to scanner audio. What happened next is not completely clear, but when police arrived at the bank, they found two bank employees, Dianne M. Look, 67, and Karen L. Barclay, 62, shot dead.
Then at 1:10 p.m., another call came in, this time of a “similar incident” at Tlusty, Kennedy and Dirks Law Office in Schofield, just blocks from the bank, police said. There, police found Sara Quirt Sann, a 43-year-old attorney and lifelong Wausau resident, dead of a gunshot wound. Quirt Sann was representing Vang’s wife in contested divorce proceedings, court records show. Vang filed for divorce from his wife in June 2015 but the divorce was not yet final.
Sann’s funeral is set for today.
While tactical teams were en route to the law office, Detective Weiland arrived at the Aspen Street apartment complex in Weston where Vang lived. Weiland was shot shortly after he arrived at the scene, police said. Tactical teams were rerouted to the apartment complex, said Marathon County Sheriff Scott Parks, and a standoff ensued for hours.
Just before 5 p.m., dozens of shots rang out that appeared to come from Vang’s apartment window, witnesses said. SWAT teams stormed the residence and arrested Vang, who was injured in an exchange of gunfire, Parks said. He was transported to an area hospital with gunshot wounds that were first considered not life threatening.
A law enforcement officer with the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office’s tactical team and an officer with the Everest Metropolitan Police Department were involved in the exchange of gunfire that resulted in the suspect’s injury and subsequent death. The involved officers are on paid, administrative leave, pending the outcome of the officer involved shooting investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation and review by the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Legal Services, Koremenos said.
No additional information related to this investigation is being released at this time.
