Fridley teen faces upgraded murder charge in December shooting of ex-girlfriend

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·3 min read

A teenager accused of killing his ex-girlfriend with a gunshot to the back of the head outside her Fridley home last year now faces a first-degree murder charge in her death.

An Anoka County grand jury on Wednesday indicted Fenan Abdurezak Uso in the Dec. 21 killing of 18-year-old Jayden Lee Kline.

Uso, of Fridley, was 17 years old at the time of the killing and charged by juvenile petition with second-degree murder five days later. The indictment moves the case to adult court.

Kline had graduated from Columbia Heights High School, where she competed on the swim and synchronized swimming teams, according to her obituary. She and her mom “rarely missed a Heights football game, always present to cheer on her two older brothers Tristan and Brandon,” the obituary continues.

The charges say Kline’s brother told police she and Uso dated on and off for about a year and that she had recently broken up with him because he lied to his family about the relationship.

Police and emergency workers were sent to the scene in the 4500 block of Third Street Northeast just before 4 p.m. on a report of a hit-and-run crash that injured a pedestrian. They found Kline lying unresponsive in the street near her home’s driveway with a head wound. She was pronounced dead at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale.

Kline’s neighbors said they heard a loud noise outside and saw a gold van speeding away from the scene. Kline’s brother saw her lying in the street near their driveway and assumed she was hit by a car, the charges say.

A neighbor’s doorbell camera showed a gold minivan slowly approaching the home and stopping. A gunshot was heard, the front passenger door opened and a woman fell out and was not moving. The van, which police learned from Kline’s brother belonged to Uso, then sped away, the charges say.

Anoka County authorities tracked the location of Uso’s phone, learned he was in the Burnsville area and notified city police, who located the van he was driving shortly before 6:30 p.m. Officers stopped Uso, saw a handgun in the minivan’s center console and detained him.

Uso told investigators he and Kline had broken up two weeks prior. After leaving the Roseville mall, he said, they got into an argument at Rosedale shopping mall in Roseville. He said “he thought he pulled out the gun” when dropping off Kline at her house, “pointed it at her, pulled the trigger once and drove off fast,” the charges say.

He added that he drove away quickly because “he realized he did something dumb” and “was shaking as he drove away and dropped the gun in the van.”

Uso went on to say he had obtained the .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun from “unknown persons” the day before. Police said the serial number matched a gun stolen in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Uso went before a judge Thursday, when bail was set at $2 million. He remains jailed ahead of an Oct. 9 court appearance.

“Up until now, the government has had an opportunity to tell their version of events,” Uso’s attorney, Thomas Beito, said Friday. “We’re looking forward to our day in court to tell the rest of the story.”

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