Court asked to commit suspect Algene Vossen who was found incompetent to stand trial in '74 Willmar homicide
Sep. 1—WILLMAR
— The Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office is asking a court to commit the man found incompetent to stand trial in a 1974 cold case homicide in Willmar.
Algene Leeland Vossen, 81, is hospitalized in Des Moines, Iowa, and has no permanent address, according to the petition to commit him as mentally ill and dangerous.
Kandiyohi County Attorney Shane Baker said, in the commitment petition filed Wednesday in Kandiyohi County District Court, that attempts to place Vossen in a skilled nursing home have failed. No facilities will accept him because of the criminal case against him and his aggressive behavior.
"No suitable alternative to involuntary hospitalization exists," the petition reads, because of Vossen's mental illness, the danger he poses to the safety of others, and the likelihood that he will inflict harm on another.
A commitment hearing has been scheduled at 9 a.m. Sept. 15 in front of District Judge Stephen Wentzell.
In November 2021, Judge Wentzell ruled that Vossen was not competent to stand trial on a charge of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Mabel "Mae" Agnes Boyer Herman, 73, in her Willmar home.
Vossen was arrested in July 2020 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after DNA linked him to Herman's death, which had gone unsolved for more than 40 years.
In May, the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the 2021 Kandiyohi County District Court ruling that Vossen was not competent. The Minnesota Supreme Court in July declined to review the lower courts' rulings.
A competency exam was first ordered after defense attorney Kent Marshall of Barrett said he believed Vossen had dementia and was incapable of working with him to prepare a defense.
Baker's petition for the civil commitment of Vossen references the findings of three different evaluators in the competency proceedings, which included diagnoses of an unspecified cognitive disorder or a major neurocognitive disorder or antisocial personality disorder.
Beginning in late 2020, Vossen was living with a niece in Iowa. He is no longer living there because of his aggressive and assaultive behavior against her, according to the petition.
An emergency guardian was appointed in June, and Vossen is currently a patient at a hospital where staff also have reported aggressive behavior.
Vossen's arrest in 2020 came after a Willmar Police Department cold case team reviewed multiple unsolved crimes, including the Herman homicide.
The team looked at several suspects from that time, including Vossen. Evidence against him had been inconclusive.
The team identified evidence that could possibly be used for modern DNA analysis.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension found DNA of an apparent suspect. Other suspects in the case were ruled out, but Vossen's DNA was not available for comparison.
The department learned that Vossen lived in Sioux Falls and executed a search warrant for his DNA, with assistance from South Dakota law enforcement authorities.
In July 2020, the BCA crime lab said Vossen's DNA was a match to the evidence found at the Willmar crime scene.
Less than a week later, officers from Willmar and South Dakota arrested Vossen at his home.
Vossen was extradited to Minnesota and booked into the Kandiyohi County Jail in September 2020. He was released on a medical furlough in late 2020, when he first began living with his niece in Iowa.
According to the commitment petition, he left her home and in June was admitted to the hospital where he remains a patient.
