Charge: Onetime N.D. prosecutor fatally beat ex-wife in Minnesota as she held child

A onetime North Dakota prosecutor fatally beat his ex-wife in his Minnesota home as she clutched the youngest of their five children and as two other children watched, according to charges filed Thursday.

Anders L. Odegaard, 31, of Warren in northwestern Minnesota, was charged Thursday in Marshall County District Court with second-degree murder in connection with the beating of 31-year-old Carissa Odegaard at his house in the 100 block of S. Division Street.

Odegaard appeared in court Thursday and remains jailed in lieu of $2.5 million bail. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

County Attorney Donald Aandal said Friday that Anders Odegaard "was exercising parenting time, and she was retrieving the children to go to church" when the assault occurred.

The criminal complaint said Carissa Odegaard was holding the youngest of their children, a 3-year-old boy, during some of the time she was attacked.

Anders Odegaard was appointed state's attorney in Mercer County, N.D., in June 2021 and was fired three months later, a state's attorney official said. He then worked as a public defender in Stark County but again was fired after three months, according to the official. Following a brief time in private practice in Bismarck, he moved to Warren.

Carissa Odegaard of East Grand Forks filed for divorce in April 2021, and it was granted six months later. Their five children, four boys and a girl, range in age from 9 to 3.

When the divorce decree took effect, the filing noted, Anders Odegaard was deeply in debt. He owed $103,180 in student loans, $22,650 on a personal loan, and another $32,750 in credit card debt in his name and $34,590 in credit card debt in both their names.

He also was obligated to pay Carissa Odegaard $1,983 a month in child support and was ordered by the court to pay her $11,298 to cover the time since they separated until the divorce took effect.

A court hearing in connection with their divorce had been scheduled for Aug. 30. Public court records do not explain the specific reason for the hearing. Now Anders Odegaard will appear before that same judge on the same date concerning his ex-wife's death.

According to the criminal complaint:

A driver called law enforcement and told the dispatched deputy that two "very worked up" children flagged him down and said their mother was badly injured and needed help.

The deputy met with Anders Odegaard in the home. He had blood on his face and in his hair while saying "I don't feel right," the complaint quoted him as saying. The deputy soon spotted an unresponsive Carissa Odegaard on the floor and suffering "severe head trauma," the complaint continued.

After Anders Odegaard was arrested, deputies gathered the five children — two of whom were in Carissa Odegaard's vehicle with the engine running — and took them to the Sheriff's Office.

The oldest of the children, a 9-year-old boy, told Sheriff Jason Boman and a deputy that his mother was there to pick up him and his siblings, when their mother and father "got into a big fight," the complaint read. "[The 9-year-old] believed his father grabbed a knife or a ... spatula and hit his mother with that." He said he had seen his father hit his mother before.

Anders Odegaard told the 9-year-old to get out of the house, and the boy soon flagged down the driver.

An 8-year-old son told law enforcement that his father didn't want his mother to take the kids. He said he saw his parents "tackling each other," according to the complaint. He said she called 911 after being choked.

The 9- and 8-year-old both said "they saw their father on top of their mother hitting her or choking her."