Arrest made after four people found dead in SUV in Wisconsin cornfield
The friends were hanging out together but the motive for the killing remains unclear
The two suspects in the slaying of four friends found dead in an SUV parked in a random cornfield in Wisconsin are reportedly father and son.
Darren Lee McWright, 56, and Antoine Darnique Suggs, 38, are accused of fatally shooting the victims identified as Matthew Isaiah Pettus, 26; Loyace Foreman III, 35; and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, all from St. Paul, Minnesota as well as Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater, Daily Mail reports.
McWright, who also uses the alias last name of Osborne, has been arrested in connection to the murders and charged with four counts of hiding a corpse, NBC News reports.
Police have yet to detain Suggs, according to the Dunn County Sheriff’s Office, per CBS Minnesota. Police describe him as armed and dangerous. Both males are reportedly from St. Paul. A preliminary autopsy revealed all four victims were fatally shot.
The motive for the killing remains unclear as the investigation continues, according to CBS affiliate WSAW-TV.
Witnesses reportedly saw Suggs late Saturday in the White Squirrel Bar in St. Paul with Flug-Presley. A complaint filed Thursday against McWright noted that Flug-Presley’s aunt stated that her niece had a “thing” with Suggs, who would often visit her from Arizona, per the report.
Flug-Presley’s father Damone Presley, said the four friends had been at the bar together and police say they all left in the early morning hours in someone’s black 2008 Mercedes Benz GL. They were reportedly driven to the small town of Sheridan, Wisconsin, about 70 miles away, where their lifeless bodies were found in a cornfield Sunday by a farmer working in the area.
All four were shot once in the head, authorities said.
Authorities used surveillance videos outside the bar and witnesses to connect the killers to the crime. According to the complaint, Flug-Presley was reportedly found in the front passenger seat of the SUV and the other three victims were in the backseat.
“Obviously we’ve had homicides in the last several years,” Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said at a Tuesday news conference, “but something of this magnitude … this is a first.”
Foreman III and Sturm were in a romantic relationship, and Sturm and Flug-Presley were close friends, according to the report. Pettus and Sturm were siblings.
Flug-Presley, Sturm, and Foreman were parents to young children.
“This is a cold-blooded tragedy,” Damone Presley told The Washington Post. “They killed my daughter.”
Presley, who is an activist in his St. Paul neighborhood, knows McWright from the area. He explained that the two interacted a month or so prior to the killings.
“My father had passed last year in December, so he came up to me in the casino and gave his condolence — we shared our childhood memories and chit-chatted about some of the work I and my parents have done in the community,” Presley told The Daily Mail.
McWright has a lengthy criminal history that includes DUIs and assault.
Presley says that his family’s standing in the community may have stopped McWright if he had known that his daughter was involved.
“It really alarms me that if he had any indication that she was a Presley — because our family is well known in the community — that he would not have stopped this tragic thing that happened.”
Presley told CBS Minnesota that she was “a beautiful mother, granddaughter, just an inspiration and joy in my life.”
Foreman III was the son of a pastor and “a doting uncle to his four nieces and nephews,” his mother Jessica Foreman said. “He was the protector of his three sisters. He was not perfect and we loved him unconditionally. He left an unfillable void.”
Foreman’s mother described him as “loving, funny, connected and human,” per CBS Minnesota.
“Sometimes innocent people pay a penalty, but the innocence of my daughter and the other three individuals who were killed should not be overlooked,” Damone Presley said. “There was no need to take my daughter’s life — no reason at all.”
“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of these victims,” Bygd said. “I wish we could release more details of our investigation, but we have to balance the public’s desire to know the details with running the risk of harming our investigation.”
Prior to the arrest of McWright, Zach Pettus told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he has “an idea” who killed his siblings but didn’t go into details. But after McWright’s arrest, he told DailyMail.com that he had “spoken too soon” and had no further comment, per the outlet.
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