A Minnesota comedian and a pillar in the Hmong-American community was murdered after going on a date with a woman he met online while on vacation in Colombia, police said.
Tou Ger Xiong arrived in in Medellín on November 29 with the hopes of spending the holidays with some of his family there, local newspaper El Colombiano reported. Instead, he was kidnapped on Sunday by a group of armed men during an outing with a woman he met through social media.
At around 7 p.m., Xiong phoned a friend in Colombia, telling them his captors were demanding $2,000 — or about $8 million in Colombian pesos — in exchange for his release. He also told his friend, who went on to file the police report, that he was being “held at gunpoint,” according to KSTP.
The kidnappers killed him a day later without collecting the requested ransom. His body was found in the La Corcovado ravine on Monday, according to the newspaper. Local authorities said he had sustained dozens of stab wounds and also had a series of bruises consistent with a fall from approximately 60 feet.
Xiong’s brother, Eh Xiong, confirmed his death Tuesday, calling the loss “indescribable.”
“We are cooperating fully with law enforcement agencies who are diligently working to investigate this heinous crime,” he wrote in a statement posted on Facebook. “We trust their commitment to bringing those responsible to justice, and we implore anyone with information to come forward and assist in this effort.”
Authorities in Medellín continued their search for suspects on Wednesday, echoing Eh Xiong’s call for community members to come forward with any details they may have about the case. The grieving brother told KSTP they have so far apprehended one of the alleged kidnappers.
Police are also searching for a woman who was spotted taking items out out Xiong’s apartment the same day he disappeared. She fled the scene when she saw officers approaching, authorities said
Xiong, who lived in Woodbury, was born in Phab Kheb, Laos in 1973. When he was about 2 years old, his family, among them his 10 siblings, fled the nation and spent four years in a refugee camp in Thailand before emigrating to the United States, according to Sahan Journal. Following his graduation from Carleton College in 1996, Xiong started traveling the country as a motivational speaker, storyteller and rap artist, calling himself America’s first Hmong comedian.
In 2015 he helped organize the first Hmong Minnesota Day at the Minnesota State Fair and was named a Bush Fellow in 2019, allowing him to earn a master’s degree in public affairs.
The Bush Foundation described Xiong as a Hmong American storyteller who shared his “personal stories across the country to build cultural competency and address racial discrimination.”
Jessica Schladebeck
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