A grand jury indicted a Brooklyn Center man Thursday on charges of fatally shooting his ex-wife last year after she remarried.
Brooklyn Center man indicted in ex-wife's fatal shooting days after remarriage
New charge is premeditated first-degree murder.
January 14, 2022 at 6:03PM
Robert McCloud, 65, was indicted in Hennepin County District Court on one count of premeditated first-degree murder. He was originally charged with one count of intentional second-degree murder after Lauri Deatherage, 48, was shot once in the head on June 18.
According to the charges:
McCloud went to his ex-wife's house in the 3400 block of N. Grimes Avenue in Robbinsdale.
He allegedly shot her while she was in bed and reaching for the phone. He thought she was going to call 911. Police responded to the scene about 9:15 a.m. after a "reporting party" told them McCloud had said he had recently purchased a gun and had gone to his ex-wife's house.
Police later recovered one of multiple flash drives McCloud had mailed to family members before the shooting. It contained a video of McCloud saying he didn't want Deatherage's new husband, whom he described as "that hillbilly," to get his stuff and his wife. McCloud also said in the video that he intended to commit suicide, the charges said.
Deatherage's husband, Billy Deatherage, told the Star Tribune that they had married four days before the shooting. He said they met 30 years ago while stationed at the Air Force base in Grand Forks. They reconnected as friends about four years ago. They married June 13, the same day as Deatherage's 48th birthday.
He described his wife as an artist, seamstress and sister who often took struggling people under her wing and into her home.
The pilot was the only person inside the plane, and was not injured in the emergency landing, according to the State Patrol.
