Kyle Fletcher, son of former Ramsey County sheriff, dies at 26

Kyle Fletcher, a Twin Cities musician who once was arrested for drug possession on orders of his father, then-Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, died Saturday at a California hospital only days after suffering a heart attack on his 26th birthday.

Family members flew to Los Angeles after getting word of Fletcher's condition, but he never regained consciousness, said his sister, Kelsey Adams of Grand Forks, N.D.

After he was declared brain dead, the family took him off life support and his organs and tissue were donated as he had wished, she said.

The heart attack "wasn't something we expected at this time because he had been clean for several years," Adams said. "But he had that personality to live loud and burn out rather than fade away."

The cause of the heart attack wasn't clear, she said.

Fletcher made headlines as the sheriff's teenage son in 2006 when he was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of drug possession and trying to escape. He underwent court-ordered treatment and did time in juvenile detention.

His father said at the time that his son's experience had taught him much "about the difficulty of recovery."

Adams said that her brother regretted that period of his life, but that his troubles brought father and son closer together.

"Since then, my dad and Kyle had a very close relationship," she said. "He felt my dad had helped him save his life."

In recent years, Fletcher had been splitting time between the Twin Cities and the Los Angeles area, where his fiancée, Cassie Galonski, lived and where he had been performing and recording. His bluegrass band, Buckthorn Brothers, was slated to play Wednesday at the Cabooze in Minneapolis and had several summer dates lined up.

In addition to his sister and father, now a Vadnais Heights City Council member, he is survived by his mother, Linda Bishop Kowitz, of St. Paul; stepmother, Kris Fletcher, of Vadnais Heights; and brothers Logan, of Richmond, Va., and Bobby, of Vadnais Heights.

Kevin Duchschere • 651-925-5035