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Suspect charged in Inver Grove Heights homicide

Minneapolis police made the arrest after authorities in Inver Grove Heights put out an alert on a vehicle they believed was connected to Monday's murder.
Credit: KARE
Police in Inver Grove Heights are investigating after a man's lifeless body was discovered in a snowbank Monday morning.

INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, Minn. — A Minneapolis man was charged Thursday in connection with a homicide discovered in Inver Grove Heights on Monday.

In a press release from the Dakota County Attorney's Office, Gabriel Alfonso Sanchez Cruz, 42, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Squads were dispatched to a scene on the 1300 block of 60th Street W. around 8 a.m. Monday on reports of a "suspicious incident." Officers found a man, now identified as 39-year-old Bryant Jon Lutgens of Burnsville, laying in a snowbank. He was declared dead on the scene. 

RELATED: Man found dead in snowbank, Inver Grove Heights police investigating as homicide

On Wednesday police put out an alert on a vehicle they identified as being associated with the homicide. That vehicle was later spotted in Minneapolis, where police initiated a traffic stop and arrested Cruz. He is currently being held in the Dakota County Jail and will make his first court appearance Friday in Hastings.

A second person in the vehicle was arrested after officers found they were wanted on a warrant issued by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. 

At this point investigators have not released a motive for the killing. Anyone with information on the case or the suspect is asked to call the Inver Grove Heights Police tip line at 651-450-2530. 

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