Charges: October killing on St. Paul street was robbery gone wrong
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A St. Paul man has been charged with murder in an October killing authorities say occurred during a drug-related robbery attempt.
The 20-year-old faces two counts of second-degree murder, court documents filed in Ramsey County earlier this month show. The St. Paul Police Department identified the victim as 42-year-old Nicholas Sletten of Little Canada.
Sletten was found shot at the intersection of Jackson Street and Wheelock Parkway on Oct. 14, near a vehicle with all of its doors open, according to a criminal complaint. Sletten was taken to Regions Hospital, where he died.
Multiple 911 callers reported seeing people run from the vehicle, and a witness told police they thought the shooting happened inside the car.
Investigators identified and spoke to two people who were in Sletten's vehicle when the shooting occurred. Both of them identified the 20-year-old as the shooter, and his fingerprints were found on Sletten's car. The two men said the 20-year-old was sitting behind Sletten in the vehicle and reached into the front seat to shoot him with an "AK-47 style gun," according to the complaint. Another man in the car also had a gun and participated in the robbery attempt, one of the men who spoke to police said.
After the shooting, the 20-year-old and three other men in the vehicle fled to one of their houses, where the alleged shooter cleaned his gun with bleach, the complaint states.
One of the men who spoke to police said he thought the 20-year-old was after "pills or weed," according to the complaint. Two of Sletten's relatives told investigators he grew and sold marijuana, the complaint states.
The 20-year-old was charged by warrant.
Sletten's killing was one of three homicides in a four-day span in the capital city.
"This violence must stop," Police Chief Axel Henry said at the time. "Solving these murders is not and is never going to be the answer. We have to prevent them from happening in the first place."