Victims, suspected shooter identified in Cloquet shooting
Jan. 10—CLOQUET — The Cloquet Police Department released the names of the two victims and the alleged shooter involved in the
Monday night shooting at the Super 8 in Cloquet.
The 32-year-old suspect in the shooting has been identified as Nicholas Elliot Lenius, of Ramsey, Minnesota. The 22-year-old hotel clerk has been identified as Shellby Marie Trettel, of Cloquet. The victim found inside a vehicle in the parking lot of the motel has been identified as Patrick Jeffrey Roers of Deer River, Minnesota.
"On behalf of the Cloquet Police Department, we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the families and friends affected by the tragic incident. We share in the community's sorrow and offer our support to all those affected by this profound loss," the Cloquet Police Department said in a statement.
On Monday, police received a call at 6:34 p.m. from an employee at the Super 8 hotel that they found another hotel employee who looked like she was attacked. Within three minutes, police arrived on the scene and found Trettel, the clerk, with a gunshot wound. She was transported to St. Luke's hospital in Duluth, where she died of her injuries.
As police searched the scene, they found Roers, 35, with multiple gunshot wounds dead inside a vehicle in the hotel parking lot.
Police found Lenius dead with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the hotel property with a handgun located nearby. The police identified him as the primary suspect in the shooting.
The police believe Trettel was the first victim. Lenius then went outside and shot Roers before walking a short distance on hotel grounds and shooting himself.
After being alerted of the shooting, police immediately issued a shelter-in-place notification for the vicinity near Super 8.
"We took a cautious approach and issued an alert until more information about the suspect's whereabouts were known," Police Chief Derek Randall said during a news conference on Tuesday.
As responding officers secured the scenes, they used hotel video surveillance to determine that the assailant was one of the three people who died. At that time, police sent out another update stating they believed the suspect to be dead.
According to video surveillance, the entire incident lasted about 10 minutes before law enforcement arrived.
Throughout the night of the shooting and early into Wednesday morning, detectives executed search warrants while the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and crime scene teams processed the scene.
Cloquet has never experienced a shooting of this nature that he can recall, Randall said.
"We've had homicides, but nothing to this nature," he said. "I don't recall in my 20-plus years here that we've ever issued a shelter-in-place alert."
This story was updated at 9:53 a.m. Jan. 10 with the names of the victims and suspect. It was originally posted at 12:25 p.m. Jan. 9.
