Woman killed in Lakeville home; suspect arrested in Rosemount, police say

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
Updated ·2 min read

A woman was killed in a Lakeville home late Thursday allegedly by a man she knew and who soon was arrested in Rosemount, police said.

Lakeville officers responded to the 17000 block of Encina Path around 11:10 p.m. after a family member of the woman reported a “significant amount of blood” inside the home, police said in a Friday statement. Officers found the woman dead inside.

The man was identified as a suspect and an alert was sent to law enforcement to be on the lookout for his car.

About 10 minutes later, Rosemount police responded to a call of suspicious activity in the 3700 block of 148th Street, which is about five miles northeast of the homicide scene. Officers found the suspect’s car unoccupied.

After a search of the area, the suspect was found in a backyard and taken into custody around 11:50 p.m. He had injuries that appeared to have been self-inflicted and was transported by M Health medics to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where he remains in custody and in their care, said Brad Paulson, Lakeville police chief.

Paulson declined to release the relationship between the victim and suspect, saying notifications of family members are ongoing.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office will release the woman’s identity at a later time, Paulson said.

Investigators had yet to establish a motive as of Friday afternoon, Paulson said. He declined to release a cause of death.

There were no police calls to the home prior to the killing, he added.

It was the first homicide in the burgeoning Dakota County suburb of about 75,000 residents since Jan. 8, 2023, when then-32-year-old Donte McCray shot 31-year-old Kyla O’Neal, who was nine months pregnant with his child and the mother of his 2-year-old daughter, in the parking lot of an Amazon Fulfillment Center, where McCray worked. In December, McCray received a 47-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree murder.

The Dakota County Sheriff’s Office and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are assisting Lakeville police in the investigation into Thursday’s killing.

“Any loss of life, especially in an unexpected way, is traumatic, certainly to the victim, but also for those that know the victim and our first responders and those that come in to process the scenes and work through those investigations,” Paulson said.

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