Boyfriend who said it was suicide found guilty of killing St. Paul woman in Lowertown apartment

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·5 min read

A jury on Friday found a Fergus Falls, Minn., man guilty of fatally shooting his girlfriend in her Lowertown St. Paul apartment — and that her death was not a suicide as he claimed.

Matthew Phillip Ecker, 45, was convicted of the sole count of second-degree intentional murder, not premeditated, for shooting 32-year-old Alexandra Lee Pennig in the head on Dec. 16, 2022.

Jurors deliberated for about seven hours Thursday and Friday before reaching the verdict, which followed an eight-day trial.

A former emergency room nurse practitioner, Ecker wore a gray suit and blue tie and sat with his head down and hands folded as the verdict was read. It was met with gasps and tears from supporters of both Pennig and Ecker.

Ramsey County District Judge DeAnne Hilgers, who presided over the trial, set sentencing for March 29.

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Gordon Knoblach, who tried the case with colleague Ambrosia Mosby-Velasco, told Hilgers that Ecker faces a presumptive sentence of 25½ years in prison, based on the severity level of the offense and no prior criminal history.

Sheriff’s deputies then escorted Ecker, who has been out of jail on a half-million dollar bond since late 2022, back into custody.

Outside the courtroom, Ecker’s attorney, Bruce Rivers, said his client would appeal the jury’s decision. “The fight’s not over,” he said.

Pennig’s parents and her older sister and other family members and friends hugged each other and cried.

Her mother, Mary Jo Pennig, said they feel “relieved that justice was done. I’m sad to know what she went through. It just breaks my heart … I can’t even imagine it.”

Jim Pennig said his daughter was a registered nurse “and always went for the underdog, the sick, the lamented, the ones that no one else would support. That’s the way that she went through life.”

From suicide to homicide

Rivers said in his Feb. 8 opening statement Pennig was a troubled woman who fought mental health and addiction issues and ultimately put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger with Ecker’s handgun.

He said that Ecker, who was a married father at the time of the killing, cared for Pennig and even loved her.

Moreover, Rivers told jurors, the medical examiner, Dr. Kelly Mills, as well as Dr. Lindsey Thomas, who was later hired by the defense, both agreed that Pennig’s manner of death “is undetermined.”

The prosecution relied heavily on Ecker’s inconsistent statements he made to police immediately at the scene and later during interviews. He called several investigators to the stand who “started noticing inconsistencies that turned this from a suicide response to a homicide investigation,” Knoblach said in his opening statement.

Ecker called 911 from the apartment at 260 E. Fifth St. at 2:50 a.m. and reported that Pennig had shot herself in the head with his gun. He told dispatch that he called four minutes after she pulled the trigger. He said that he had a permit to carry a firearm.

Officers found Pennig lying on her back in the bathroom with a gunshot wound to the left side of her head. She was not breathing, and soon pronounced dead. Her left hand was on top of a handgun, which was lying on her chest.

In the hallway outside the apartment, Ecker told police that Pennig had taken his gun from his backpack, then ran and locked herself in the bathroom, where she shot herself. Ecker said he was on the apartment couch, ran to the bathroom and broke the door down with his shoulder to get inside, according to the criminal complaint.

“He said he tried to stop the bleeding by plugging Alex’s head,” Knoblach said in his opening statement. “When officers asked why his hands were clean, he said he washed his hands in the bathroom sink. Officers found the bathroom sink to be dry.”

Officers noted that Ecker was crying, but “producing no tears,” Knoblach said.

Ecker initially told officers he performed CPR. He later admitted to investigators that he did not perform CPR on her, the complaint says.

Ecker told investigators he took the gun and put it in his suitcase because he got scared of getting in trouble because it was his gun. He said that after going back to the bathroom and looking at Pennig, he grabbed the gun and put it on her chest.

“Ecker said the gun was lying next to Ms. Pennig and he moved it onto her chest,” Knoblach said. “Ecker said the blood was streaming out and he didn’t know what to do, despite being an emergency room nurse practitioner.”

Officers found the pistol “remarkably clean,” Knoblach said.

Prescription drugs

Under questioning at police headquarters, Ecker told investigators that he had been in an open relationship with Pennig for two years after meeting her at a Fergus Falls medical clinic where they both had worked. He said she knew about his wife and his four children, and that Pennig was OK with it.

An analysis of Ecker’s phone showed that he had been refilling Pennig’s prescription drugs, including Adderall and diazepam, and helping her pay her rent, the complaint says.

Ecker told investigators that Pennig called him on Dec. 15 on his way to work in an emergency room in Roseau, Minn., and asked him to come see her because she was being physically abused by her other boyfriend.

Ecker told investigators he called his work and said he wasn’t making it and then drove to St. Paul, arriving at Pennig’s apartment around 2 p.m. They went to three bars. At the second bar, Pennig learned that her other boyfriend was at Camp Bar.

Ecker said they decided to go to the bar, where the other boyfriend, who was with a woman, eventually approached them and punched him in the face. Security dragged the other boyfriend outside.

Rivers said Ecker and Pennig stayed for another 45 minutes or so before returning to her apartment.

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