HAYWARD, Wis. — Jurors heard two wildly different versions of the events leading up to the fatal shooting of six hunters in the woods of northwestern Wisconsin as the trial of a Minnesota man facing life in prison for the massacre opened Saturday.

Chai Soua Vang, a Hmong refugee living in St. Paul, faces life in prison on six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted homicide for opening fire on a party of eight deer hunters after he was found trespassing on private property.

"He felt the victims had disrespected him and he knew they intended to report him to law enforcement for trespassing," Assistant Attorney General Roy Korte told jurors in his opening statements Saturday morning. "In the end, it was nothing more than anger."

While acknowledging Vang's involvement in the shootings, defense attorney Steve Kohn said his client feared for his life when he fired off at least 20 rounds at the party of seven men and one woman, killing six and injuring two.

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"He is going to tell you he felt he was under siege," Kohn said, assuring jurors they would hear from the defendant himself about the "foul language and racial epithets" the victims hurled at him as he tried to walk away.

Anticipating Vang's self-defense claims, Korte said the two survivors of the standoff would admit profanities were used but that the threats stopped short of violence.

"What's clear, and the defendant agrees, is that no one had physical contact with him," Korte said.

Korte emphasized that only one of the victims, Terry Willers, had a gun. Willers and his friend, Lauren Hesebeck, were the only ones to survive the attack and will testify later in the trial.

The shootings occurred near a campsite on the 40-acre property owned by Robert Crotteau and Terry Willers, who had invited an extended group of friends and family to the site for the opening of Wisconsin's deer hunting season on Nov. 21, 2004.

Willers discovered Vang perched in a tree stand on the property, and radioed back to Crotteau, who drove in an ATV with his 20-year-old son, Joseph, and friends Mark Roidt and Dennis Drew, to survey the situation.

What happened after that differs depending on the account, but ultimately, Vang opened fire on the men.

"Robert gets about 120 feet through the brush before he was shot through the back, exploding his heart instantly," Korte said. "He died without knowing what happened to his son, Joey, and the first person who found him was his son, Carter."

Joey Crotteau ran 468 feet, Korte said, before he was hit four times from behind.

Drew, 55, begged rescuers to give him his last rites after he was shot in the abdomen, Korte told jurors. He succumbed to his wound the following day.

Nearly 50 family members of the victims took up one side of the courtroom, with more in an overflow room, who listened through stifled sobs as gruesome crime scene photos were shown.

Even a police witness became choked up as he recalled the moment he first came upon victims Allan Laski and Jessica Willers, dead from multiple rifle shots to their backs after coming to help their friends.

Terry Willers comforted his wife in the back row of the courtroom as the picture of his oldest daughter lit the dark courtroom.

Birchwood police officer Peter Weatherhead paused to maintain composure as he described a picture of Roidt, 28, who was found lying on his back, gazing upward.

"Did you check for signs of life?" Krote asked the witness.

"No," Weatherhead answered. "He had received a gunshot to the head."

The defendant also had eight supporters in the audience who simply identified themselves as friends of the family, though one was later identified as his mother.

One friend of Vang from the Hmong community in St. Paul, the largest Hmong population in the country, spoke in his defense outside the courthouse.

"They're so afraid, so ashamed to come here, but I am here to show my support for my brother," Pofwmyeh Yaaj said during a break. "We had dreams together, but now those dreams are gone."

"It's very saddening when you are approached by people who are taller and stronger than you," he said. "But what can you do at any given moment — it's in the Lord's hands."

Testimony resumes Monday.