Man pleads guilty to St. Paul sober house killings

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·5 min read

A man pleaded guilty Friday to a double-murder at a St. Paul sober-living home that he just moved into after being provisionally discharged under a civil commitment for being mentally ill and chemically dependent.

Joseph Francis Sandoval II, 34, entered a Norgaard plea to two counts of second-degree intentional murder in the October 2022 stabbing deaths of Jason Timothy Murphy, a 40-year-old handyman, and 56-year-old Jon Ross Wentz, a resident of the sober home in the city’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood.

Under a Norgaard plea, a defendant says they are unable to remember what happened due to drug use or mental health impairment at the time, but acknowledges there is enough evidence for a jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

At the time of the killings, Sandoval had five felony charges pending in Hennepin County in connection with three violent Minneapolis cases, all filed in March 2021, according to court documents. He was conditionally released from jail on the charges and found to be mentally incompetent to stand trial in June 2021.

About a month later, he was civilly committed to the state Commissioner of Human Services as mentally ill and chemically dependent. He was sent to the Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center, then five months later provisionally discharged to an Evergreen Treatment Recovery Center sober home in St. Paul.

Nearly a year later, on the afternoon of Oct. 20, 2022, Evergreen transferred Sandoval to its East Side sober home in the 1100 block of Lawson Avenue. Evergreen’s housing specialist drove him there, helped bring his belongings to the living room and handed him a TV remote, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Daniel Rait said Friday in court.

Sandoval sat down on the couch and began hearing voices from the TV telling him to kill or be killed, he told police after his arrest.

“This tragic case is a heartbreaking reminder of the limits our mental health system faces when addressing the needs of those with profound mental illness in the justice system who are found incompetent to stand trial but do not receive adequate treatment or supervision,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a Friday statement.

Choi added, “Continuing to improve the connection between these two systems demands further legislative effort and funding. Our hearts go out to the Wentz and Murphy families who have suffered so profoundly due to these shortcomings.”

‘They’re going to kill me’

Officers responded to the house around 4:30 p.m. on a report of a man screaming that a person killed someone inside the home.

Officers saw a man, later identified as Sandoval, leaving the house and walking toward an alley. He had blood on his clothes, cuts to his face and hands and appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance. He told officers he had ingested fentanyl.

Sandoval said he had just moved into the house and did not know anybody living there. He said “two big guys” caused his injuries, but could not describe them. He then said somebody tried to kill him and that the person “got those other guys, too,” according to the charges.

Sandoval said when he got to the sober house, he sat down on the couch. He said, “I was hearing noises. The TV kept saying ‘take your opportunity,’ so I took my opportunity,” the charges say. When an investigator asked Sandoval what he meant, he said, “The TV said they’re going to kill me. When I was watching ‘Dragon Ball Z’ (a Japanese anime television series).”

Officers saw drops of blood in the kitchen and on stairs leading to the basement, where Murphy was found dead. Wentz was dead in an upstairs bedroom, a bloody knife and bloody hammer next to him. Both men had multiple cuts and stab wounds, many to the neck and head. Autopsies would later find they died of blood loss.

Officers spoke to a “distressed” witness who was screaming outside the sober home, where he lives. He said he tried to enter through the front door, but a man he didn’t know, later identified as Sandoval, blocked his entry, saying it was “too messy.”

The witness walked to a side door, entered the home and saw drops of blood in the kitchen and down the stairs. He found the handyman in the basement. When he tried to leave, Sandoval said he could not and would need his help “disposing of some things,” the charges say.

He told police Sandoval then put him in a chokehold and they fought. He said he was able to break free, run to a neighboring house and tell the residents to call 911.

After hospital staff released Sandoval, police transported him to the Ramsey County jail. There, Sandoval told an officer, “When you can’t protect someone you care about most in the world, it eats at you, it eats at you, it eats at you until it boils over,” the charges say. He added, “I just wanted a quiet room.”

Found competent in June

Sandoval has been jailed since his arrest in lieu of $2 million bail. His public defender, Baylea Kannmacher, said in court Friday that he’s been meeting with the jail’s mental health workers and taking his prescribed medications.

Last June, a Ramsey County judge found him competent to stand trial on the charges.

During Friday’s plea hearing, Sandoval, who was wearing a blue jail uniform with his hair in a topknot, replied to questions from Kannmacher in the affirmative.

“You do not recall the circumstances of this offense … is that accurate?” Kannmacher asked.

“That is accurate,” said Sandoval, as his mother looked on from the courtroom gallery.

Sandoval made a straight plea to the charges, meaning no agreement is in place, although his attorney can argue for concurrent prison sentences on each count, which carry up to 40 years. Judge Joy Bartscher set sentencing for July 19.

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