*Warning: This Article Contains Sensitive Subject Matter*
Background
On the afternoon of May 16, 1980, 36-year-old Mary Stauffer was wrapping up some final errands before she, her husband, and their two young children would be leaving their suburban Minnesota home for a four-year missionary trip to the Philippines. One of those errands was getting a haircut for her 8-year-old daughter, Beth.
There was no way of knowing that day would be the beginning of a terrifying 53-day ordeal that most people can barely imagine. After Mary and her daughter were abducted from a parking lot in broad daylight by an obsessed stalker, Mary’s family, local police, and the FBI spent the next seven weeks trying to locate them. Meanwhile, Mary focused on trying to keep her daughter alive while praying for a way out.
Family Life and Teaching
Long before her name became connected to one of Minnesota's most disturbing kidnapping cases, Mary Stauffer was living an ordinary life centered around her family, teaching, and her Christian faith. Mary grew up in West Duluth, Minnesota, and moved with her family to Hermantown at age ten. After high school, she attended Bethel College in St. Paul, graduating in 1965.
Soon after graduation, Mary married Irv Stauffer, a fellow Bethel graduate training to be a pastor. The Stauffers were involved in missionary work, and by the spring of 1980, Mary, Irv, and their two young children, Steve and Beth, were preparing for a four-year Baptist missionary trip to the Philippines.1
Prior to Irv and Mary Stauffer’s first missionary trip in 1967, Mary taught ninth-grade algebra for two years at Alexander Ramsey High School in Roseville, Minnesota. Among the students who passed through her classroom was a Taiwanese-American teenager named Ming Sen Shiue.
A Growing Obsession
Ming Sen Shiue was born in Taiwan on October 15, 1950, and moved to Minnesota with his mother and siblings at age eight. His father had been a University of Minnesota professor, and he died when Shiue was still young. As a teenager, Shiue had serious behavioral problems.
He was violent toward his younger brothers and sisters, and at fourteen he was ordered into psychotherapy after setting fire to several apartments. His own mother later described him as a boy who never seemed to feel anything at all.
However, none of these issues manifested themselves when Shiue was a student in Mary Stauffer’s ninth-grade algebra class at Alexander Ramsey High School. Shiue performed well academically and played several sports, including football and wrestling. ABC News later reported that his classmates had even voted him "Most Likely to Succeed."
According to people who knew him back then, Shiue developed a serious crush on his young algebra teacher and started writing stories for himself, which contained sexual fantasies at first about actresses and movie characters, and eventually about Mary specifically. Some of what he imagined was consensual, but a lot of it wasn't.
Over time, Shiue became increasingly isolated. According to psychologist Paul Reitman, who later evaluated him, Shiue struggled to form meaningful relationships and became deeply troubled by feelings of inadequacy. Shiue would channel these feelings of bitterness and resentment toward Mary.2
1975 Incident and Stalking
In 1975, Mary and Irv Stauffer traveled to the Philippines, embarking on their second mission trip. Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, Ming Shiue’s continuing fixation on Mary led him to act out in a frightening manner.
On July 4th, 1975, Shiue entered a house in Duluth, Minnesota, where he believed Mary was living. He was mistaken, though, as the house instead belonged to her husband Irv’s parents, who were also named Stauffer. However, rather than leave when he learned of his mistake, Shiue confronted Irv’s parents with a firearm and tied them up. He warned them that he would come back and kill them if they reported the incident to the police.
Shiue — unaware that she had left the country — continued to try to locate Mary Stauffer. When the Stauffer family finally returned to Minnesota in 1979 and moved into missionary housing at Arden Hills, it didn't take Shiue long to find them. He started watching from the woods outside their apartment building and even attempted to enter the Stauffer home three different times.
He tried to break into the house through the patio doors using a blowtorch. On another occasion, he entered a storage area beneath their bedroom and cut holes through the floor, leaving behind sawdust which Irv later swept up, unaware of why it was there. Shiue even learned where the family kept their spare apartment key.
Taken in Broad Daylight
Meanwhile, the Stauffers went about their lives, unaware of the impending danger. In the spring of 1980, the family was preparing for another missionary trip to the Philippines.
On Friday, May 16, Mary was running some errands in preparation for the upcoming trip. That morning, she had taken her six-year-old son, Steve, for a haircut, and later that afternoon, she drove her eight-year-old daughter, Beth, to her haircut appointment at Carmen's Beauty Salon on Cleveland Avenue in Roseville.
According to employees, Mary and Beth left the salon around 4:30 p.m. As they returned to the family's 1973 Ford, a man in his early thirties wearing thick glasses appeared with a gun, pressed it to Beth's side, and said he needed a ride. Mary, ready to do anything to protect her daughter, offered him the car keys.
However, the stranger — who would later be identified as Ming Sen Shiue — had other plans. Shiue forced them both into the car and ordered Mary to drive north. When a squad car pulled up behind them at an intersection, he warned that he would shoot Beth if the patrol car followed them. The patrol car turned the opposite way, and the moment passed.
Mary, who was strong in her faith, tried appealing to Shiue by telling him that God could help him if he was in trouble. He told her to be quiet and keep driving. Eventually, he directed her to a remote, wooded stretch of Anoka County, away from the busy roads and people who might have seen what was happening.
When the car finally stopped, Shiue used the rope and medical tape he'd brought with him to tie and gag Mary and Beth. He then forced them face-down into the trunk of Mary's car. Being forced into the trunk of a car was a terrifying moment for Beth. Mary had to remain focused on protecting her daughter while dealing with the immediate danger around them. The car then began moving again.
At one point, Mary managed to loosen Beth's restraints. Shiue discovered what had happened and became angry, tightening their restraints again. Later, the two managed to loosen themselves once more.
Shiue stopped again when he heard movement from the trunk. According to the court record, he removed a metal plate securing the spare tire and dropped the tire onto the two captives. It was another attempt to keep them from moving around or making enough noise to attract attention.
Abduction and Murder of Jason Wilkman
As the car was parked in a remote area near Roseville, two young boys approached the vehicle to investigate. As one of the children, six-year-old Jason Wilkman, went around to the back of the car, Shiue grabbed the boy and forced him into the trunk. The other child fled as the car peeled away.
As the car drove away, Mary and Beth tried to comfort the terrified child. He told Mary and Beth his name and age, but little else, as he was crying and in a state of heavy panic. Mary later remembered how innocent he seemed and how helpless she was to protect him while she and her daughter were also being held captive.
Shiue drove for nearly an hour before the road turned rough as they could hear gravel and branches scraping against the car. He eventually stopped in the isolated Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area in Anoka County, opened the trunk, and pulled Jason out. Beth caught a glimpse of a long, bent metal bar in his hands before the trunk shut again. Some time later, Shiue returned alone.
After more driving, Shiue abandoned the Stauffers' car and moved Mary and Beth into his own windowless van. They then stopped briefly at his electronics shop, Sound Equipment Services on University Avenue, and after dark he brought them to his family's house at 1960 North Hamline Avenue in Roseville.
53 Days Captive
Once inside the house, Shiue led Mary and Beth to a closet he had already prepared, roughly four feet long and twenty-one inches wide, with blankets, pillows, and a few basic items. The closet became the center of their world for the next seven weeks. 3
Mary and Beth were kept there for most of their captivity, with their arms tied at the elbows and the closet door kept shut. Shiue had also removed the doorknob, making it much harder for them to open the door from inside.
