By Anthony Lonetree, Joy Powell and Tim Harlow, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) –
MINNEAPOLIS — The daylight shooting death of a 19-year-old Hamline University student was the fourth instance in a week in which a victim was lured to St. Paul by someone advertising an iPhone for sale on Craigslist, police said Monday.
Aung Thu Bo died Saturday after being shot in the head in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood on Friday while his assailant searched his pockets for money.
“This was a senseless and violent murder, and our hearts go out to the victim’s family and friends,” County Attorney John Choi said Monday. Bo’s shooting was the third high-profile killing linked to Craigslist in the metro area in recent years, and Choi warned buyers to watch out for unsavory characters.
Steven E. Lewis, 26, of Maplewood, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with second-degree murder and aggravated robbery in connection with Bo’s death. Bo, described by friends and neighbors as a willing volunteer with a kind heart and a head for computer science, would have been a sophomore at Hamline this fall.
The three earlier robberies at gunpoint occurred in St. Paul on Aug. 3 and Aug. 4, and in one case, the victim — an Oakdale resident — was hit in the mouth with a gun, police spokesman Howie Padilla said. Like Friday’s robbery, that Aug. 4 incident took place in the afternoon not far from Dayton’s Bluff Recreation Center.
Police were investigating similarities in the cases, Padilla said. His advice to prospective Craigslist deal-makers: “Ask a lot of questions.”
In the St. Paul neighborhood where Bo lived with his parents and three younger sisters, relatives and friends came and went quietly Monday from the one-story sand-colored house surrounded by neatly kept flower beds. A family friend said the parents were overwhelmed with shock and making funeral arrangements.
Neighbors had only kind words to say about the slain college student.
“He was an awesome kid,” said Julie Hartigan, who first met Bo when he was a little boy, not long after he and his family settled as new immigrants on Humboldt Avenue, just off Lexington Parkway.
His parents had left their native Burma during fighting there, she said. They stayed in a Thailand refugee camp, where Aung was born, before making their way to America on a church sponsorship.
According to the criminal complaint, Bo and his girlfriend met Lewis in parking lot of Leo’s Chow Mein on Hudson Road early Friday afternoon to buy a cellphone Lewis had been advertised on Craigslist. Lewis persuaded them to drive to his nearby house to retrieve the phone’s charger as well as the phone.
Bo was hesitant, saying he didn’t do transactions at houses, but relented.
Shortly after getting into the car behind Bo, Lewis pulled a gun at Cypress Street and Wakefield Avenue and demanded, “Give me what you got,” according to the complaint. Bo had trouble finding his wallet and said his money was at the bank.
With the gun held to the victim’s right temple, Lewis leaned forward to search the driver’s pockets. The gun went off and Bo slumped forward. Lewis ran from the car, which began rolling forward. The victim’s girlfriend brought the car to a halt, screamed for help and applied pressure to Bo’s wound.
Responding officers used a description of the defendant and reports of similar robberies in the area to track a Pontiac Grand Am to a residence on Plum Street. They found Lewis in the vehicle on his cellphone with blood on his hands and apparent bullet wounds in his forearm, the complaint said.
The officer reported that he heard Lewis say upon his arrival: “I love you, and tell the girls I love them. I’m going away for a long time.”
Officers recovered a Glock handgun magazine and several cellphones at the house.
Lewis told police that someone shot him after he bought juice at a market and had nothing to do with Bo’s murder. “Lewis, apparently realizing the inherent stupidity and inconsistent logic of his claim, then asked for a lawyer,” the complaint read.
Bo was removed from life support Saturday at Regions Hospital.
Lewis’ criminal history in Minnesota includes felony convictions for damage to property, theft and domestic assault, along with misdemeanor convictions for fifth-degree assault, domestic assault and receiving stolen property. According to state court records, Lewis has faced charges in Ramsey County nearly every year since turning 18 in 2003.
Lewis remains jailed on lieu of $500,000 bail.
The two other high-profile Craigslist murders in the metro area also involved deception and guns.
In September 2010, Da Xiong was convicted in the shooting death of a Maplewood man. Xiong talked Youa Ty Lor into taking Lor’s sports car on a test drive in rural Lake Elmo, where he lured Lor to a ditch, shot him in the stomach and left him to die. In 2007, Michael J. Anderson became known as the Craigslist killer when he lured a 24-year-old woman to his parent’s home in Golden Valley and shot her. Katherine Olson had answered Anderson’s ad in which he sought a baby sitter and claimed to be somebody named “Amy.”
On Monday, Choi said buyers should make deals only in public places. He said of Bo:
“By all accounts (he was) a very nice young man with his future ahead of him.”
