Man, 19, pleads guilty to murder during $70 pot deal in Rochester

A 19-year-old man awaits sentencing for fatally shooting a 24-year-old man during a $70 marijuana deal outside a Rochester apartment building.

Robert B. Salley Jr. pleaded guilty in Olmsted County District Court to second-degree murder and an illegal weapons count in connection with the shooting death on Jan. 10, 2020, of Trevor Boysen outside the Quarters Apartments in the 800 block of SE. 21st Avenue.

Salley, who lived at the apartment complex at the time, remains jailed ahead of sentencing on March 8. County Attorney Mark Ostrem told the Star Tribune that his office will seek a 17½-year term for Salley.

With credit for time in jail since his arrest, that means Salley would serve 11 years in prison and the balance on supervised release.

However, his defense can argue for the judge to order a shorter sentence.

Salley has exhibited a pattern of violence since his midteens, according to court records.

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.

On the day of Boysen's death, 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.

Salley was arrested about 2 miles away that same day.

He told an investigator that he arranged over Snapchat to buy $70 of marijuana from Boysen in his apartment parking lot, the criminal complaint read.

Salley then said Boysen flashed 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