Minnesota comedian Tou Ger Xiong posted pictures with his Colombian girlfriends before police say he was lured by a woman, kidnapped and murdered this week.
Xiong, a well-known activist, was seen smiling with an unnamed redhead while dining at a Korean restaurant located in Medellin on Oct. 20.
“This is Korean food, with my girl,” the 50-year-old said in a video posted on his Facebook, showing his bowl of beef soup before panning to the smiling redhead with a distinctive tattoo reading “Never Give Up” on her neck sitting across the table.
However, there is no suggestion at this point the woman is the same person allegedly involved in his disappearance.
In another Facebook post, a smiling Xiong stood between two women and jokingly wrote in the caption: “In the event I get kidnapped, don’t look for me. I am happy.”
It is also not known if the women in the picture had anything to do with his fatal kidnapping this week.
The 50-year-old comedian had returned to Medellin, Colombia, earlier this month, telling friends he planned to meet a woman he had been chatting with online.
Police have so far remained tight-lipped about the identity of the woman said to have led him into a kidnap plot, but confirmed they have arrested her after looking at the recent pictures on his phone (read here).
At about 7 p.m. local time Dec. 10, Xiong called his roommate in Colombia and said a group of men had him at gunpoint and had kidnapped him.
The group demanded a $2,000 (8 million Colombian pesos) ransom for his release, according to local newspaper El Colombiano.
The publication reported the ransom exchange never happened and Xiong was later found in a ravine, dead from multiple stab wounds and blunt force trauma.
Xiong’s brother, Eh, told The Post his brother had communicated with a mystery woman several times before they were to meet for a date.
“He had been in contact with this woman before, and she was part of the ‘new friends’ he made on his trips down there,” brother Eh Xiong, 56, said of his brother’s fatal trip.
Eh Xiong told the StarTribune his brother knew about a recent uptick in the kidnapping of tourists in Colombia, but said he never felt unsafe visiting the country.
“He was aware of it,” Eh Xiong said. “But he’s one of those people who only assumes the best in people.”
“It’s almost like a second home, he loved it there.”
Xiong said his brother, an avid traveler who often posted his adventures on his social media, loved Colombia’s “lively energy” and had several friends there.
The comedian, who was born in Laos in 1973, “shared his personal stories across the country to build cultural competency and address racial discrimination,” the Bush Foundation said when Xiong was named a 2019 fellow.
His family said they are working with Colombian law enforcement to investigate the crime and bring his body back to the US.
The comedian’s death has rocked the Woodbury, Minnesota, community where he lived.
