ST PAUL, Minn. — The four Minnesotans found dead in a rural western Wisconsin cornfield were actually killed 70 miles away in St. Paul, investigators said Monday.
Homicide investigators from the St. Paul Police Department will now take the lead in the case after new evidence revealed that the victims were killed in Minnesota. Other agencies working the case include the Minnesota BCA and the FBI.
The group was found dead in Dunn County, Wisconsin on Sept. 12 when a farmer stumbled upon an SUV abandoned in a cornfield just outside the small town of Sheridan. The Dunn County Sheriff's Official originally was the lead agency investigating the quadruple homicide.
Police identified the victims earlier this month as Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater; Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26, of St. Paul; Loyace Foreman III, 35, of St. Paul; and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, of St. Paul. Officials say all four died from gunshot wounds.
RELATED: After quadruple homicide, family and friends travel to rural Dunn County to remember lives lost
Two men have been arrested and charged in connection with the quadruple homicide: Darren Osborne, who is being held in the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center, and Antoine Suggs, who is still being held in Gilbert, Arizona where he turned himself in. Police say Suggs is awaiting extradition to Minnesota. Both he and Osborne, who police say is Suggs' father, are each charged with four counts of hiding/interfering with a corpse.
A search warrant filed in Ramsey County reveals several new details about the police investigation that led to Osborne and Suggs.
- Police are testing a cigarette butt found in the cornfield near the SUV for DNA. They also found shell casings in the vehicle.
- Osborne, the older suspect, admitted in a police interview to following his son to Wisconsin, but claimed he did not see the bodies in the Mercedes. He confirmed that Antoine was driving the Mercedes and that he gave him a ride back to St. Paul after Antoine left the vehicle in rural Wisconsin.
- A Menomonie Police Department Squad Car camera happened to capture the Mercedes in a parking lot three hours before the abandoned vehicle was found. The officer pulled over someone else and the SUV is seen driving away. When police returned to that lot after seeing the video, they found blood droplets.
- Police also found blood droplets at a gas station in Wheeler, WI, where video shows Suggs driving the Mercedes, and his father driving a different SUV.
In a press release distributed Monday Saint Paul Chief of Police Todd Axtell said the four deaths "shook our community to its core."
“We have four young lives—with all of their promise—erased," Axtell wrote. "We have families left with only memories. And we have an entire community in search of answers."
A GoFundMe has been started for each of the victims' families. To donate to the families of Jasmine Sturm and Matthew Pettus, click here. A GoFundMe page for the family of Loyace Foreman III can be found here, and for Nitosha Presley here.
Axtell said the four deaths were the 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th homicides this year in St. Paul.