Her was born in 1973 in Laos, came to the United States as a Hmong refugee as a child, and was living in public housing in Saint Paul with her six children, separated from her husband. She was twenty-four. She had made previous suicide attempts, had called the police to the house repeatedly, and had been in contact with social services; she was described afterwards as isolated, in poverty, and without support in a community where a woman leaving her husband had little standing.
On September 3, 1998 she strangled all six of her children with a rope and an electrical cord: Kouaeai, eleven; Samson, nine; Nali, nine; Tang Lung, seven; Aee, six; and Tang Ke, five. She then attempted to hang herself and survived. She telephoned the police herself.
The six children were Kouaeai Hang, eleven; Samson Hang, nine; Nali Hang, nine; Tang Lung Hang, seven; Aee Hang, six; and Tang Ke Hang, five.
She pleaded guilty and on December 2, 1998 was sentenced to fifty years with no parole eligibility for more than thirty-three.
The case caused a long examination in Minnesota of what had been available to her: the number of contacts with police and welfare agencies before the killings was substantial, and the Hmong community organisations in Saint Paul argued afterwards that nothing in the system had been capable of reaching her. It is a family killing in a single act, not a serial case.