The FBI has been called in to help local Wisconsin authorities after four young friends from Minnesota were killed and left “random” in an SUV abandoned in a cornfield.
Authorities in Dunn County, Wisconsin, where the quadruple homicide victims were discovered Sunday, have made no secret that they have been baffled by the crime.
“It is very unusual in this area. Viouslybviament, we have had homicides in recent years, but something of this magnitude …[I’m] I’m working in my 33rd year working in Dunn County, and this is the first one, ”Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Perhaps most puzzlingly, the victims have been identified as lifelong friends in the Twin Cities area, none of whom apparently had any connection to the Wisconsin area where they were found.
“We can’t find any connection to this area other than the possibility of leaving the Twin Cities at random,” Bygd said.
The victims – Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26, and Loyace Foreman III, 35 – died from gunshot wounds, according to police. . They are believed to have been killed less than 24 hours before they were found by a farmer on Sunday morning.
Flug-Presley and Sturm are described as close friends; Pettus was reportedly Sturm’s half-brother Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Foreman was her boyfriend.
“This is a strange thing that should never have happened,” said Zach Pettus, Matthew Pettus ’brother and Sturm’s half-brother. Star Tribune. He said he saw no reason why anyone in the long group of friends would be targeted.
“We knew something was wrong when [Sturm] he did not respond to our messages, “he was quoted as saying.” We have an idea of who did it, but I don’t know if I should say anything now. “
Sturm and Foreman leave behind five children. Pettus had a 3-year-old daughter and Flug-Presley also leaves two young children.
According to reports, the group had been next to a St. Louis bar. Paul on Saturday night, located about 65 miles from where they would be the next day. But they left with someone a few hours before appearing dead, according to Flug-Presley’s father.
Damone Presley, Sr., told Twin Cities Pioneer Press the group had left the bar together and got into someone else’s vehicle.
But he said he knew nothing more than that.
“This is the mystery,” he was quoted as saying in the newspaper. “We hope that through the investigation we get an answer,” he said, adding that all of this “just doesn’t make sense.”
Police have not yet named any suspects or revealed details about a possible motive, and Bygd went so far as to admit on Tuesday that even the motive is “a mystery” to investigators at this time.
However, authorities have said they do not believe the quadruple homicide had anything to do with drug activity or organized crime.
A Minneapolis FBI office is helping the sheriff’s office investigate the horrific murders and could become a joint investigation if it turns out the murders were committed in Minnesota, an FBI spokesman told Pioneer Press.
For now, according to Bygd, researchers are beginning to examine everyone the group of friends knew.
“Everyone is suspicious right now,” he said.