Charges say $70 pot deal proves deadly for seller outside Rochester apartments

A $70 marijuana deal turned deadly for a man who was shot dead in a vehicle outside a Rochester apartment building, according to charges against the 18-year-old accused of pulling the trigger.

Robert B. Salley Jr., 18, was charged Monday in Olmsted County District Court with second-degree murder and an illegal weapons count in connection with the shooting death Friday afternoon of 24-year-old Trevor Boysen outside the Quarters Apartments in the 800 block of 21st Avenue SE.

Salley, who lives at the apartment complex, remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail ahead of a court appearance on Jan. 22. Court records list no defense attorney.

Monday's murder charge follows a pattern of violent behavior by Salley since his midteens. He was convicted as a juvenile of three crimes in Ramsey County: an assault in 2015, making terroristic threats in 2016 and illegally possessing a firearm in 2018.

According to the charges in his latest case:

Police were alerted to several gunshots about 2 p.m. and someone down outside a car in an apartment parking lot. Boysen, who lived in nearby Chatfield, was dead at the scene.

A police sergeant spotted an SUV parked roughly 2 miles to the south at the Oak Terrace Estates mobile home park and saw that one of the occupants had on clothing similar to what he was wearing when surveillance images captured Salley fleeing on foot. Salley was arrested, and a handgun was seized from where he was sitting in the SUV.

Salley told an investigator that he arranged over Snapchat to buy some marijuana for $70 from Boysen in his apartment parking lot. Salley then said Boysen displayed a gun and warned him of a "bounty on his head," the complaint read. Salley said he lunged for the gun, and it fired three times as they struggled.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482