Hang Lee’s family always waited for her to come home, but they also accepted the grim reality as the years passed after she disappeared in St. Paul when she was 17.

She’s been gone for 24 years now. On Friday and Saturday, Lee’s family will hold a spirit release ceremony for her.

Koua Lee, one of Hang’s brothers, said he struggled with formally acknowledging his sister’s death.

“I fought not to do to this,” he said this week, adding that other relatives helped convince him it was the right thing. “We hope that releasing her spirit will raise awareness and maybe it will make some people really talk.”

Hang Lee’s family and police have pleaded with people to come forward for decades.

“Hang isn’t forgotten, and the case is active, it’s ongoing,” said Sgt. Paul Paulos, an investigator on the case. “We will find her someday.”

Hang Lee was a Highland Park High School senior when she left her family’s St. Paul apartment for the last time in January 1993. She told her brother she was going to a job interview with a friend’s boss, later identified as Mark Steven Wallace, who had a small painting business.

“My sister was making $7 and this guy was going to pay her a little more, and that’s why she went to the job interview,” said Koua Lee, who had worked with his sister at Wong Cafe on Rice Street. “We were trying to make money because our family didn’t have much.” Related Articles Search continues for third occupant of plane that crashed on Sunday

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Police have long described Wallace as a person of interest in Lee’s disappearance, though he’s never been arrested or charged in the case.

When Lee disappeared, Wallace had been out of prison for about a year and a half after being convicted in two criminal sexual conduct cases.

In one case, Wallace raped a 16-year-old girl in Cottage Grove who had gone with him on the promise of a job interview. He held a knife to her, tied her up and covered her eyes and mouth with duct tape, according to the criminal complaint. Wallace told the teen he would kill her and her family if she said anything about what happened, the complaint said.

ONE CHAPTER CLOSING; INVESTIGATION REMAINS ACTIVE

Hang Lee was a little girl when she moved with her family from a refugee camp in Laos to St. Paul. Her relatives practice Hmong customs, including holding a spirit-release ceremony in the aftermath of a funeral. It is meant to allow the person’s soul to be free for reincarnation.

“(A)s much as it breaks our hearts that we can’t find the closure and answers we seek, we as a family, have decided to finally release her spirit on April 7-8 2017,” Lee’s niece, Lillian Lee, wrote in a recent Facebook post. “The spiritual release acknowledges that Hang may no longer be alive in this world, but she will live in our hearts forever. We as her family, would like to honor her by releasing her spirit to the other world.”

The family invited investigators to the ceremony, who plan to attend Saturday and to tell people they haven’t given up on solving the case and that they still need the public’s help.

Hang Lee’s case remains categorized as a missing person, not a homicide. It is one of St. Paul’s oldest missing-person cases.

While police continue to try to talk to Hang Lee’s friends, and Wallace’s friends and relatives, they also look for other ways to revisit the investigation from nearly 25 years ago with today’s technology, Paulos said.

Police continue to ask people to come forward with information, even if it seems like a small detail.

“Someone out there knows something,” said Officer Benny Williams, who’s been investigating the case for years.

PERSON OF INTEREST JAILED IN UNRELATED CASE

Wallace has been locked up in the Washington County jail since August and St. Paul police were hopeful that charges filed against him there — alleging kidnapping, stalking and possession of methamphetamine — could lead to a break in the Hang Lee case. He has not talked to St. Paul investigators, Paulos said.

Wallace, who is now 54, pleaded not guilty in the Washington County case. The criminal complaint alleges that Wallace was verbally and physically abusive to a 20-year-old woman who was a high school friend of his daughter.

The woman told police that she became aware of a murder in St. Paul and asked Wallace about it. “Wallace stated, ‘She entered my business and never came out,’ ” according to the criminal complaint. She also said Wallace told her he would do to her what he had done to the girl in St. Paul, the complaint continued.

Wallace declined an interview request with the Pioneer Press.

His attorney, Laurel O’Rourke, said because she was recently assigned to the Washington County case and had not talked to Wallace about it in person, “it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the matter at this time other than to reiterate that Mr. Wallace is presumed innocent.”

O’Rourke had no comment on the Hang Lee case.

STILL SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Hang Lee’s father had not wanted to have a spirit-release ceremony for her until her body was found, but he encouraged his son to go forward with it before he died in 2013.

Lee’s mother, now 87, said she has forgiven whoever hurt her daughter, but she wants to know where Hang Lee’s remains are so they can give her a proper funeral and burial.

Chong Vang said she hopes no other families will have to bear the pain that they have and she cried as she invited the community to her daughter’s spirit release ceremony.

“Those who love her, please come,” said Chong Vang, speaking in Hmong with her son translating. “Also, please come and see that this is not something that’s just in a story. It is real, too.”

MORE INFO

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‘Moral courage’ training, already planned for St. Paul officers before George Floyd death, takes on more urgency St. Paul police ask anyone to come forward who witnessed suspicious activity on Jan. 12, 1993, the last day that Hang Lee was seen alive, or who has information about what happened to her. People with info can call 651-266-5903.

Hang Lee’s family invites the public to her spirit release ceremony at the St. Paul Funeral Home, 199 Plato Blvd., St. Paul. It begins Friday at 4 p.m., goes through the night and will end Saturday, likely in the 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. range.