Man spared prison at April sentencing is charged in fatal shooting in New Hope, arrested in Wisconsin

A man on probation and suspected in a fatal shooting last month in New Hope has been captured in western Wisconsin and charged with murder, officials said Monday.

Jack Guy, 32, no known address, was arrested without resistance early Saturday afternoon near Balsam Lake and remains in the Polk County jail on charges of second-degree murder and illegal weapons possession, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

He remains held in Wisconsin pending his extradition back to Minnesota.

New Hope police said Guy shot 23-year-old Carnell Mark Johnson Jr. of Bloomington on Oct. 24 in a home in the 7300 block of Bass Lake Road. Johnson was shot in the chest, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

Court records in Minnesota show that Guy has been convicted of many crimes over the years, including five times for violating a no-contact order and once each for a weapons offense, domestic assault, forgery, illicit drugs, theft, burglary and disorderly conduct.

In April, Hennepin County District Judge Matthew Frank spared Guy a five-year sentence and put him on probation for three years after he pleaded guilty to illegal weapons possession and defying a no-contact order on May 25, 2022.

In explaining the downward departure to the Minnesota State Sentencing Guidelines Commission, Frank wrote among other things that “Mr. Guy has developed a stable life in the community with a steady job. has advanced at that job [and] is caring for his children.”

According to the charges, which were filed Wednesday but remained under a court-order seal until Guy’s arrest:

In response to a 911 call from the home, officers arrived at the scene, where the caller said her brother had been shot. She later described him to police as not blood-related but a family friend.

She directed the officers to the living room, where Johnson was on the floor. Emergency medical responders took him to North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale, where he was declared dead that night.

The woman told police that someone she didn’t know walked in through the front door and shot Johnson, who was sitting on the couch. Guy immediately left.

Video surveillance on the block showed multiple vehicles outside the home minutes before the shooting. The driver of one vehicle entered the residence and stayed for about 20 seconds. He ran in a small circle and went back into the home for another 10 seconds before exiting and getting in his car.

When told about the video surveillance, the woman admitted lying and acknowledged that Guy and two other people had visited the home about noon, when she and the others drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and used cocaine.

She went on to say she was in the kitchen when Johnson was shot, and her two children were upstairs. The woman said she didn’t see the shooting, but Guy was the only other adult in the home at the time.

The woman said she and Guy held Johnson after the shooting, and she said she heard Guy say, “I’m so sorry,” while she was calling 911.

Another woman contacted police on Oct. 29 and said Guy came to her Minneapolis home on the day of the shooting, and left a gun before packing some things and leaving.

Police arrived and retrieved the gun from atop her refrigerator. It was the same caliber as a discharged cartridge casing found by police at the shooting scene.

Investigators noted that Guy’s mother lives in Taylors Falls, in Minnesota on the border with Wisconsin, and determined “there is reason to believe he may be hiding in Wisconsin,” the charges read.