Suspect goes on trial for shooting that killed 3, injured 2 in St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·5 min read
1

Derek Pemrick was the first St. Paul police officer to arrive at 951 Case Ave., where he and his partner would go on to find the bodies of three people who’d been fatally shot in the head.

But before Pemrick entered the duplex, he was approached by the two surviving gunshot victims. One of them was Stephen Anderson, who had a gunshot wound to his forehead and wounds to both hands. He named the shooter as Antonio Dupree Wright.

“It’s … Antonio,” Anderson said to Pemrick, as captured on his body-worn camera on the afternoon of Sept. 4, 2022.

“Did he leave? Is he here?” Pemrick asked Anderson. “Where’s Tony?”

Ramsey County prosecutors played the short video clip as Wright’s mass shooting trial got underway Tuesday before District Judge Kelly Olmstead in downtown St. Paul.

“By some miracle, Stephen Anderson survived,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Nori Wieder said in the prosecution’s opening statement. “And he was able to recognize and identify Antonio Wright as being the shooter.”

Wright, 42, of Minneapolis, faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder after prosecutors say he repeatedly fired a Glock handgun at the victims during a violent rampage on the first floor of a duplex in St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood. Killed were Angelica Gonzales, 33, Cory Freeman, 42, and Maisha Spaulding, 44.

On Monday, Wright waived his right to a jury trial in favor of a court trial, meaning the judge will decide the case on the issues of guilt and the existence of facts to support an aggravated sentence.

Wright’s attorney, Joe Friedberg, filed the waiver shortly after the judge granted the prosecution’s request to allow evidence that allegedly shows his client’s prior criminal acts, known as Spreigl evidence.

Specifically, on Sept. 2, two days before the Case Avenue shooting, Wright allegedly shot a man in St. Paul because he thought he had snitched on him after he heard Wright discussing a 2017 murder. In that case, in which a 37-year-old man was hit four times outside a home in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood, Wright has been charged with kidnapping and attempted murder.

At the time of the shootings, Wright was under the supervision of the Hennepin County Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation after being released from prison on a drug case. He has eight prior felony convictions.

On Tuesday, Friedberg told the judge he would defer his opening statement until after the prosecution is done presenting its case.

In his motion opposing Spreigl evidence, Friedberg noted how the shooter was wearing a ski mask and suggested Wright was elsewhere, saying there is no evidence as to his whereabouts after the Sept. 2 shooting “until he appears in a video in the vestibule of his mother’s apartment in Chicago” at 9:58 p.m. Sept 4. “It appears that the masked intruder is seen leaving the Case Avenue crime scene at approximately 4:30 on Sept. 4 on a motorbike,” Friedberg wrote.

Officer was shocked by scene

Officers called to the shooting just after 4:30 p.m. found Anderson, then 33, and a 41-year-old woman who had wounds to her left arm and left foot. She slipped in and out of consciousness while waiting for medics to arrive. They were able to tell Officer Pemrick that others in the duplex were dead.

The officer and his partner found Freeman face-down by the front door. Spaulding was slumped over on a couch. Gonzales was in a corner of the living room. All three had no signs of life.

“My initial reaction was shock,” Pemrick testified Tuesday. “I had to take a moment to calm my heart rate down. … My initial feeling was that I wanted to help these victims, and it didn’t appear I could do so.” They were pronounced dead at the scene.

Anderson later told police the shooter was Wright, who goes by the nicknames “Figg” and “D,” the criminal complaint said. He said he considers Figg a close friend and that he is a heroin dealer with ties to the Vice Lords gang and to Chicago. He said Figg had been paranoid of late and suspected federal authorities were tracking him and that people were snitching on him.

Anderson told police he saw Figg pull up on his small black motorbike. He said Figg, who was wearing a ski mask, dark hoodie and jeans, walked in through the back door and stood in the living room entryway.

Anderson said he greeted Figg by saying, “What’s up, D?” He said Figg pulled the mask further over his nose and said, “I’m not D.”

Wieder said it was indeed Wright, or Figg, who then raised a tan Glock handgun and “turned his attention to his first victim,” Spaulding, who sat on the couch, and fired once, hitting her in the head. Spaulding’s boyfriend dove onto the floor and hid under the couch while shots were fired through it. He was not struck.

Wright fired three shots at Anderson, Wieder said, the last one “straight at his head, with the bullet going through his hands before striking him in the head.”

Wright then shot Gonzales, who was Anderson’s girlfriend, twice in her head and once in the chest, arm and back, Wieder said.

“But Antonio Wright wasn’t done,” she said. “He then turned his attention to a back bedroom.”

There, Wright shot Freeman four times — once in the face and once in the head — and then shot the woman who survived in her arm and foot, Wieder said.

Arrested in Chicago

Wright fled out the back door, driving away from the scene on a black moped, Wieder said.

Investigators analyzed records from Wright’s cellphone, which showed it was last used the day before the murders, Wieder said. It remained powered off until Sept. 5, when it communicated with a cellphone tower in Chicago.

Wright was arrested with the phone Sept. 7 in Chicago, Wieder said.

Testimony continues Wednesday morning.

Related Articles