Man gets 40 years in prison in dismemberment case

WAUSAU – ShouaNeng Hang told a Marathon County judge Wednesday afternoon that his father was a loving man devoted to his family and community, before he was brutally murdered in April 2013.

"Losing and saying goodbye to my father is one of the most difficult things I have gone through," Hang said at the sentencing hearing for the man convicted in his father's death.

He said his father, Tong Pao Hang of St. Paul, Minnesota, would take his children fishing and camping. His father meant the world to him, ShouaNeng Hang said.

"If tears could build a stairway to heaven, I would walk right up there and bring my dad home again," he said.

ShouaNeng Hang was one of about 75 people who gathered at the hearing. As they took turns speaking, Tong Pao Hang's family painted a picture of a community leader who loved spending time with his family and who was just beginning a new life in Wausau.

His killer, KouThao, 28, of Wausau was convicted in September of second-degree intentional homicide, hiding a corpse and possession of a firearm by a felon, according to court records.

Marathon County Circuit Judge Michael Moran sentenced Thao to 40 years in prison followed by 20 years of extended supervision.

Thao shot Tong Pao Hang in the basement of a Wausau home in April 2013, according to court records. In the following weeks, police found parts of Hang's dismembered body hidden in a car and a Milwaukee home, according to court documents.

A motive in the killing remained unclear, and the two men seemed to have met just days before the shooting, prosecutors said.

Marathon County Deputy District Attorney Theresa Wetzsteon said Thao had a "pattern of criminal behavior and violence" before he killed and dismembered Tong Pao Hang. That history stretches as far back as 2002, she said.

He was quick to blame others for his problems, she said, and sees himself as a victim.

"'I only wish this didn't happen to me. ... I am not sorry for what I did,'" she said Thao wrote to a family member in a letter that was seized at the Marathon County Jail.

Thao had assassinated the character of the victim and the victim's relatives to try to save himself, Wetzsteon said, and in doing so forced Tong Pao Hang's family to defend their loved one at the sentencing.

Thao's attorney, Steven Kohn, argued that his client deserved less than the maximum sentence of 80 years in the Wisconsin State Prison System, which would include time in prison and on supervision.

"I don't think this is a young man who is a worst-case offender and for whom we have no hope," Kohn said.

This murder, however gruesome, was not premeditated or intentional, Thao said when it was his turn to speak. He said it happened in the heat of the moment and apologized to Tong Pao Hang's family and to his own family.

"I am not a monster," Thao said. "I am truly sorry."

Moran said before he sentenced Thao that Thao's crime had shocked the community. He cited Thao's history of violent behavior, saying Thao posed a risk to society.

"It's more like an execution than an accident," Moran said of the murder.

Alison Dirr can be reached at 715-845-0658. Find her on Twitter as @AlisonDirr