(AP) – A Minnesota man was charged with murder Monday after authorities say he posed as a package delivery driver, entered a home and demanded money before he shot three people in the head, including at least one at point-blank range.
Alonzo Pierre Mingo, 37, was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, with intent, for Friday’s killings in a suburban Minneapolis house, which authorities say happened as two children under the age of 5 were present. He’s jailed on a $5 million bond.
Mingo made his first court appearance on Monday and was denied a public defender. Online court records do not list an attorney and it was not immediately clear if he had one who who could comment on his behalf. A man who confirmed he was Mingo’s brother hung up when reached by The Associated Press and asked about Mingo’s criminal charges.
Coon Rapids police said they received an emergency call to the home Friday. When they arrived, they found two dead men and a dead woman, all with gunshot wounds to their heads.
Video footage from outside the home showed three people leaving Mingo’s car on Friday and entering the home, police said. Two were dressed as delivery drivers, and one carried a cardboard box, according to authorities.
Footage from a home camera showed Mingo, dressed in a UPS-style uniform, lead a man at gunpoint into a bedroom where a woman and two children under the age of 5 were, according to a police description of the video. Police said the video shows Mingo held the man and woman at gunpoint and demanded money, then led the group from the room.
He returned to the room with only the woman, then shot her at point-blank range, according to police.
“The older child can be seen entering the bedroom shortly thereafter, crying hysterically,” Coon Rapids police wrote in a probable cause statement.
The younger child later tried to check on the woman, but the older child pulled them away and out of the room, according to the statement.
Police did not note in the probable cause statement whether any money or valuables were missing from the home.
When officers arrived, they found one of the deceased men in the house’s doorway, another was in an office. The woman’s body was found in the bedroom.
Video shows Mingo and two other adults left the home seven minutes after entering it, the probable cause affidavit says. Police found Mingo driving the vehicle several hours later and arrested him. Mingo is from Fridley, another Minneapolis suburb less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) away from Coon Rapids.
The criminal complaint makes no mention of charges against the other two suspects who entered the home.
Police said Mingo had been employed at UPS until early January. They found a UPS delivery uniform top and vest in a backpack in Mingo’s vehicle. Fingerprints on the cardboard box brought into the home match Mingo’s, according to police.
UPS spokesperson Karen Tomaszewski Hill said in an email that Mingo was a seasonal employee “who only worked for the company for a short time” until mid-January.
“As this is an active investigation, we will defer to investigating authorities for additional questions,” she said.
In Minnesota, second-degree murder, with intent, carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, though sentencing guidelines usually call for a presumptive sentence that is less than that, depending on the defendant’s criminal history.
The sentencing guidelines say that even though they are advisory, presumptive sentences “are deemed appropriate” and judges should depart from them only when “substantial and compelling circumstances can be identified and articulated.”
Prosecutors said they plan to seek a sentence that goes above the guidelines due to aggravating factors in this case. Among them, they say, the victims were treated with particular cruelty and the killings happened while two young children were present.
Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines were created to establish consistent sentences that are neutral without considering factors such as race or gender.
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Associated Press writer Jack Dura contributed to this report.
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