Hallucinogenic drugs suspected factor in double murder-suicide in Roseville apartment

The outburst also left one other person with a knife wound to his neck, police said.

September 26, 2023 at 8:43PM
Police tape marked off the Roseville apartment building where police officers found three men dead and a fourth badly injured early Saturday. (KYELAND JACKSON, STAR TRIBUNE FILE/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Hallucinogenic drugs are suspected of being a factor in a man's unprovoked violent outburst in a Roseville home over the weekend that ended with two men killed, another seriously wounded and the perpetrator dead from a self-inflicted gunshot, officials said Monday.

The carnage erupted about 2:30 a.m. Saturday at an apartment a few blocks southwest of the intersection of Hwy. 36 and Snelling Avenue in the 1600 block of Eldridge Avenue, where officials arrived to find three men in the residence dead and a fourth with a critical knife wound to his neck, police said.

"A motive has not been identified, [but] initial indications suggest hallucinogenic drugs may have been a contributing factor," Deputy Police Chief Joe Adams said in a statement. In the meantime, Adams said, "the case remains an active investigation."

Adams identified the man responsible for the attacks and who shot himself as 32-year-old Meng Vang, who lived in the apartment. Adams said Vang killed John Thao and Fong Vang, both 32. Thao was cut with a knife, and Vang was cut and shot, the deputy chief added.

Taken by emergency responders from the scene with a knife wound to the neck was Nou Xiong, 33, Adams said. Xiong's condition at Regions Hospital in St. Paul was upgraded Monday to good, the deputy chief said.

Fong Vang was one of three people who died in a Roseville apartment early Saturday. (With permission from GoFundMe/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Police said all the men were friends, and the three who died were from St. Paul.

"We suffered a tragic loss of one of our brothers, Fong Vang, to an unexpected horrible event," Moe Vang wrote on an online fundraising campaign started to help the family with funeral expenses. "Fong was such a kind, humble, and loving young man and it is devastating that his life was cut too short."

Officers were alerted to the violence when a woman called them and said her boyfriend, Xiong, called her and said he was hurt and needed medical attention, Adams said.

John Thao (With permission from GoFundMe/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

"According to Xiong, an unprovoked Meng Vang suddenly started attacking him with a knife," the deputy chief said. "Xiong was eventually able to escape to a bedroom and summon help."

Before this incident, there had been no police-related calls to the residence and no documented law enforcement contacts with Meng Vang, according to the deputy chief.

"Our thoughts are with those impacted by Saturday morning's tragic events," Police Chief Erika Scheider said in a statement. "We will continue to investigate and hope to provide as many answers as possible for the families."

One of those families is mourning Thao's death. Fongcu Thao wrote on an online fundraising page to help the family with expenses that his brother was a world class athlete in sepak takraw, a sport imported from southeast Asia that resembles kick volleyball.

"We started the sport at young age, and that is the only thing we love to do," the brother said.

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Paul Walsh

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Paul Walsh is a general assignment reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune. He wants your news tips, especially in and near Minnesota.

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