MINI TRUE CRIME ROUNDUP: Gruesome family tragedy ends with murder by screwdriver at a daycare center

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
There's no worse scenario than this, where you drop off a child to somewhere you think is safe, and you get that phone call.
I think we can all relate who have children, and those who don't. That this is just a tragic situation anywhere in the world.

**Lauren Barry** (0:17)
This is a True Crime Roundup from The On Deadline Podcast. We explore crime stories reported on by Audacy's radio newsrooms across the country. I'm your host, Lauren Barry. This week, we're diving in to a case out of WCCO News and Talk in the Twin Cities.
The one you heard about a bit at the top of the show. It's a brutal tale of murders allegedly carried out by a man against his wife and child at a home daycare where other children were present. The suspect is also accused of killing his mother. We'll hear from a woman who knew the suspect's slain wife and daughter. A woman who sent her own children to that daycare.
Minnesota is where a horrifying string of murders took place this week. A 41-year-old man allegedly stabbed his mother to death, and then proceeded to kill his wife and child with a screwdriver in a home daycare where other children were present. He allegedly traveled across two Minnesota towns to commit the brutal murders. Audacy's station WCCO News and Talk in the Twin Cities was on the story throughout the week, and we'll follow their coverage here of the news as it broke and developed. First, here's some of the initial reporting from Wednesday.

**Suzy Jones** (1:50)
Hopkins Police Chief Brent Johnson telling reporters that a man and a woman and a young child are dead following the incident at the Brown Bear Daycare. Investigators say six other young children were at the home at the time.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:04)
There's no worse scenario than this, where you drop off a child to somewhere you think is safe, and you get that phone call. I think we can all relate who have children, and those who don't. This is just a tragic situation anywhere in the world.

**Suzy Jones** (2:19)
Now, about 1220 today, Burnsville Police responded to a report of a stabbing at a home there, and a short time ago, Laura, we have been told the two are related. Live in the newsroom, Suzy Jones, News Talk 830 WCC.

**Lauren Barry** (2:33)
On Thursday, the day after the murders, the local community had already come together to support each other.

**Suzy Jones** (2:40)
It did not take long before law enforcement, clergy members, and others came to the aid of Hopkins. Mayor Patrick Hanlon.

**Patrick Hanlon** (2:50)
There's already been mental health professionals that have reached out that want to help in any way that they can with our communities, the chaplains that have been working to assist in helping people understand the unfathomable that happened here today.

**Suzy Jones** (3:05)
He says other daycare providers have also come forward to offer free care to those who went to that center, again, where that terrible tragedy took place. Suzy Jones, News Talk 830 WCCO.

**Lauren Barry** (3:22)
Jones explained how she and other reporters at the station first learned about the crime and the steps they took as new information unfolded in an interview with WCCO's Adam Carter of the Adam and Jordana Show.

**Adam Carter** (3:37)
Suzy Jones from our newsroom in here, if you can just kind of recap on what you know that is reportable and what we hope to find out at 1130

**Suzy Jones** (3:47)
Well, as I said, Adam, this information kind of starts to trickle in. We have a new service in our newsroom called Data Miner.
They kind of follow and track different, maybe a scanner, etc. And they'll kick out information. And sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not. We look at it. So I got in this morning at 10 and started to see it maybe 10, 20, 10, 15 and said, looks like Data Miner says there's three people dead at a daycare center in Hopkins. So that gets your attention.

**Adam Carter** (4:20)
But that absolutely hasn't been confirmed at this point.

**Suzy Jones** (4:23)
No, but that gets us started. So folks, no. And then we called the Brown Bear Child Care Center voicemail. Gracie Stockton, our morning editor, got online, Googled it. She said, oh, maybe it's old.
Meaning, it might have been sometimes they'll re-post something from the past. And so then, as the minutes went by, really, it became obvious that this was something.

**Adam Carter** (4:48)
Something, yeah.

**Suzy Jones** (4:48)
And then we made some phone calls and saw different reports, knowing just where at this point, Adam, we're looking at like a location so folks know what's going on, where we don't know exactly what happened inside that home. There was a report out that said there's no threat to the public, which sometimes indicates different things based on, and we don't want to draw conclusions, but we understand from years of covering news what that might mean.