Mary Stauffer Biography
Mary Stauffer was a high school teacher who was abducted together with her then eight-year-old daughter, Beth and held captive for 53 days by an obsessed former math student Ming Sen Shiue. Her story has been made into a Lifetime movie Abducted: The Mary Stauffer Story.
Mary Stauffer Age
Mary is 75 years old, at the time of the kidnapping she was 36 years old.
Mary Stauffer Kidnapping – Mary Stauffer Abduction Story
Mary was abducted together with her 8-year-old daughter Elizabeth on May 16, 1980 while leaving a beauty salon in Roseville, Minnesota. A man, who was later identified as twenty-nine-year-old Ming Sen Shiue, forced himself into their car at gunpoint and ordered Stauffer to drive to a remote site, where he forced her and her child into the trunk. Ming drove them to his home where he locked them in a closet.
Shiue began to rape her daily and filmed the assaults, which sometimes lasted hours. Shiue complained that Staufer didn’t show him affection during the assaults and at one time he tried to suffocate Beth until Stauffer kissed him on the lips to make him stop.
During all this time, he continued to go to work at the electronics store he owned, keeping Stauffer and her daughter locked in the closet while he was away. The only time they left the house was when he brought them to a job fair in Chicago tied up in the back of a rented Winnebago.
On July 7, Stauffer and Beth finally escaped when Shiue was at work. Though she was chained to her daughter, Stauffer managed to break open the door and call the police from Shiue’s phone. She told them who she was and where she was, and then made her way outside with her daughter—still chained to her—to hide and wait for the police, who arrived minutes later.
Mary Stauffer Abductor
Stauffer’s kidnapper, Ming Sen Shiue was a former math student of Stauffer 15 years prior. While still in he had been obsessed with Stauffer who was his 9th-grade math teacher. At some point after he graduated he began stalking Stauffer.
In 1975 he broke into a home in Duluth, Minnesota, that her in-laws owned. She wasn’t there, but Shiue tied up her relatives and threatened to kill them if they reported the crime to the police.
According to court filings, Shiue had broken into her family-in-laws’ home in Duluth, Minnesota, because he mistakenly thought she lived there. He’d threatened her in-laws with a gun, tied them up and told them he’d kill them if they reported the break-in. In 1979 when Shiue learned that Mary and her family were living in an apartment in St. Paul at Bethel University, where her husband worked he tried to break into the apartment three separate times, at least once by trying to drill holes in the floor beneath Stauffer’s bed.
Mary and her husband spent several years in the Philippines and working as missionaries, which kept her out of the reach of Shiue. When Mary returned to the U.S. Shiue found out where she was living and shortly before she and her family were due to return to the Philippines, Shiue kidnapped them.
How Long was Mary Stauffer Kidnapped
Mary was kidnapped for 53 days before she was finally able to escape while Shiue was at work. She called the police and was rescued and shortly after Shiue was arrested.
Ming Sen Shiue Other Victims
On the day Shiue kidnapped Stauffer he also kidnaped a six-year-old Jason Wilkman and killed him. Shiue had stopped the car because his victims were making noise in the trunk. Two boys were nearby and one saw what was going on. He snatched him and shortly drove to another location, killed Wilkman, and dumped his body.
Ming Sen Shiue Arrest and Charges
After Shiue was arrested he was charged and found guilty of the murder of Jason Wilkman and the kidnapping of Mary and Elizabeth Stauffer. He was convicted in both trials and received two sentences to be served concurrently: a sentence of 30 years to life for the federal kidnapping charge and a sentence of 40 years for the state murder charge.
Before he went to prison he lashed out at Stauffer and slashed her in the face with a knife in the courtroom. He is still in prison and has been denied parole.
