Thread by @thedailybeast

On the snowy evening 17-year-old Hang Lee disappeared, she told her brother Koua that she was meeting with her friend Nikki and Nikki's boss about a potential job.
She said, ‘If I don’t come back, look for me.’
And that’s the last time Koua saw her.
thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…

A few days later, Hang's family reported her missing, but they believe police “didn’t really care at that time, like, ‘Oh, it’s just another Asian runaway,’ or whatever.”

Six months passed. Then, one day, detectives showed up at the family home.
thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…

“They came to talk to my mom,” said Koua.
“Nikki saw all the fliers and felt bad and called [police].”

Investigators now had a name: “Wallace” was Nikki’s boss, 30-year-old Mark Steven Wallace—the last person Hang was with the night she disappeared.
thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…

Police checked Wallace's criminal history, and found it was extensive and violent.

When Hang vanished, Wallace had only been out of prison for about 18 months after convictions for a pair of rapes—one of which involved a 16-year-old girl.
thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…

Wallace has long been the prime suspect in Hang’s disappearance, but has never been arrested or charged.

Investigators got nowhere with him. He lawyered up, and refused to talk.
thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…

“The cops were like, ‘Sorry, we can’t just arrest him,’”Koua said.

“They said it would be trouble solving it... At that time, DNA was still very new and they were trying to do it with DNA, but they told us they got nothing. And that was it.”thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…

Hang would be 45 years old today. Her case remains open as one of the oldest unsolved missing persons cases in St. Paul.

It is considered a missing persons investigation, not a homicide, because her body hasn't been found.

Read @justinrohrlich's story:
thedailybeast.com/st-paul-teen-h…