ST. PAUL, Minn. — A 36-year-old man who was on parole shot and killed his pregnant ex-wife and injured another during a carjacking in St. Paul, the complaint said.
He had been on parole since March after serving more than a decade in prison for shooting and killing a man in 2008. The man had been suspended and lived in a halfway house, but had been allowed to live in a apartment complex on Sycamore Street East on Oct. 19 to visit his ex-wife, according to court documents.
Around 9:00 PM that evening, police responded to a report of a shooting at the apartment complex; Police found the woman, later identified as 35-year-old Damara Stowers, lying on the bedroom floor. There were five 9mm shell casings in the room and she was pronounced dead at 9:26 p.m. She was eight to nine weeks pregnant at the time, the documents say.
Witnesses told police that a man had been visiting her regularly for the past two months, the complaint said. The apartment complex owner said Stowers was facing eviction. One of the residents of the apartment complex told officers that a man in a white shirt fled south a minute after the gunshots were fired, documents say.
At 9:14 p.m., officers were called about two blocks away to 99 Acker Street for a report of a carjacking. A 26-year-old man lay on the ground with a gunshot wound to his thigh. According to the complaint, he told police through a Spanish interpreter that he had parked his Audi in a parking lot after returning from the store with another man.
He was smoking a cigarette when a man wearing a white T-shirt and gray shorts approached him. The man said something to him in English that he did not understand and then shot him, the victim said. He also tried to shoot the other man but missed, the complaint said. According to the charges, the man in the white shirt initially fled the scene, but returned and tore into the Audi.
Charging documents say the shooter then called a Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office employee to say he had just shot someone and he wanted to turn himself in. However, he didn’t.
He faces two counts of murder, two counts of carjacking and two counts of assault. Stowers’ death was the 23rd homicide in St. Paul this year.
Note: The above video first aired on October 20, 2024.
WCCO personnel
