Charges: Suspect said North Mankato man was ‘going to have to die’ before shooting him in head

ST. PETER, MINN. — An Arlington, Minn., man was charged with murder Thursday after another man was shot four times and killed in a dispute at a North Mankato apartment complex.

Dominic Scott Ellen, 41, was charged in Nicollet County District Court in St. Peter with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the death of John Everette Lutgen-Bernatz, 27.

According to charges, Ellen told Lutgen-Bernatz during a dispute over money that he was “going to have to die.”

Ellen faces five other felony charges: three for assault, one for threats of violence and one for possession of a firearm without a serial number.

North Mankato police said they arrested Ellen after receiving a call about an argument at the Village Court Apartments at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.

An officer said that upon arriving, a woman ran out of an apartment and said, “Please help me,” according to the criminal complaint.

She told the officer that she was Lutgen-Bernatz’s girlfriend and scared of Ellen. The unidentified woman said Lutgen-Bernatz had fled his apartment at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday in fear of “Dom.” When she and Lutgen-Bernatz returned later in the morning, Ellen was waiting for them, according to the complaint.

She initially told police that she had killed her boyfriend and asked to be placed in handcuffs, a statement she later said was made in panic, the complaint said. She also said Ellen had placed her hand on the murder weapon.

When police entered the apartment, they said, they handcuffed Ellen and found a gun in his waistband and spent casings and live rounds in his left pants pocket, charges said.

Lutgen-Bernatz died from four gunshot wounds to the head, chest and abdomen, the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

Ellen was being held Thursday in the Nicollet County jail, the city of North Mankato said.

The homicide was the city’s first of 2024, police said. The department had no homicide investigations last year, according to its 2023 annual report.