Ground, Air Search For U Student Last Seen With Homicide Suspect
Update: Suspect Car Found; $5,000 Reward Offered For Information
BURNSVILLE, Minn. (WCCO) -- Burnsville Police are stepping up the search for a missing University of Minnesota student who was in the company of an Eagan man now being held on suspicion of homicide.
Twenty-year-old Anarae Schunk hasn't been seen or heard from since early Sunday morning. That's when police say she met up with a former boyfriend who's now behind bars on suspicion of shooting and killing a man in a Burnsville bar parking lot.
Thirty-one-year-old Shavelle Chavez-Nelson, Schunk's ex, has a lengthy criminal history and was arrested Tuesday in Rosemount after authorities went to a home to question him about Sunday's murder and Schunk's disappearance. He is currently in the Dakota County jail awaiting murder charges, but isn't cooperating in the search for Schunk.
On Wednesday, about 20 Burnsville police officers stepped up their search for any sign of the missing University of Minnesota sophomore, as well as the vehicle the she and Chavez-Nelson were last believed to be in. A state patrol helicopter flew over vast corn fields near Rosemount as officers combed the ground.
Surveillance cameras outside Nina's grill in Burnsville captured the chaos of the shooting early Sunday morning. That's when police say Chavez-Nelson got into an argument with 23-year-old Palagor Jobi and shot him dead.
Those security cameras also show Chavez-Nelson and Schunk arriving together earlier in the evening in a car registered to him. Police accounted for that car, described as a 1983 Buick LeSabre Limited, Wednesday night.
Schunk is described as 5-feet, 9-inches tall, 165 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. She was last seen wearing a white zip-up jacket with a University of Minnesota logo on the front.
According to her brother, Shrunk broke off her relationship with Chavez-Nelson last November, but met up with him over the weekend in hopes of getting back some of the $5,000 she'd lent him.
"The origin of their relationship was the identification that she had an opportunity to help somebody, and in that she thought what she was doing was the right thing," said Owen Schunk, the missing woman's brother.
Chavez-Nelson has a lengthy criminal record, with previous convictions and time spent in prison for aggravated robbery and burglary.
This past June 12, Chavez-Nelson was arrested in Richfield for breaking into a home and pointing a loaded pistol at a woman, forcing her downstairs.
He's also used at least 19 different aliases, but is currently booked in the Dakota County Jail under the one Schunk's family knew him by: Anthony Lee Nelson.
Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom expects to file homicide charges against Chavez-Nelson by noon Thursday.
If you have any information on Schunk's whereabouts, call 952-895-4636.
