A felony case has been filed against the father of a man charged earlier with fatally shooting four people in St. Paul and leaving their bodies in a vehicle abandoned in a western Wisconsin farm field.
Darren L. Osborne, 56, of St. Paul was charged late Wednesday afternoon in Ramsey County District Court with aiding and abetting an offender after the fact in connection with the killings that occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 12.
Osborne, who also goes by the surname McWright, appeared in court Thursday morning and remains in the Ramsey County jail in lieu of $2 million bail before a court appearance Thursday. A public defender has yet to be assigned to him; his next court appearance is Oct. 28.
The criminal complaint alleges that Osborne and his son Antoine Darnique Suggs, 38, went in separate SUVs to the Town of Sheridan in Dunn County, then Osborne drove his son back after the Mercedes-Benz SUV and the bodies were abandoned on Sept. 12 in the cornfield about 60 miles east of St. Paul.
What Osborne doesn't acknowledge, according to the complaint, is knowing there were bodies in the SUV. Once Osborne realized what his son may have done, the father had no insight for investigators about a motive behind the killings, the complaint continued.
Suggs, 38, surrendered on Sept. 17 in his home state of Arizona and has been charged with four counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Matthew Pettus, 26, and half-sister Jasmine C. Sturm, 30, both of St. Paul; Sturm's boyfriend, Loyace Foreman III, 35, also of St. Paul; and Nitosha Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater, a close friend of Sturm's who also may have been dating Suggs at some time.
A motive has yet to surface for the killings, other than Suggs allegedly telling law enforcement that he just "snapped."
The criminal complaint against Osborne echoes much of what the charges against Suggs say regarding the movements of the four from one W. 7th Street bar in St. Paul on Sept. 12 to another before Suggs allegedly shot all four as they sat in the SUV.
