MINNEAPOLIS — A man from Arizona was convicted on Friday of killing four people in Minnesota and then leaving their bodies in an SUV in a cornfield in Wisconsin.
Antoine Suggs, 39, was found guilty of four counts of murder in the deaths of Nitosha Flug-Presley, 30; Jasmine C. Sturm, 30; Matthew Pettus, 26; and Loyace Foreman III, 35, in Sept. 2021, according to The Associated Press.
Prosecutors claimed that Suggs meant to kill the victims after drinking in St. Paul, Minnesota, the AP reported.
Suggs’ defense attorney Kevin DeVore said in court that Suggs flew from Arizona to Minnesota to go to his son’s football games and take his daughter to her first day of kindergarten, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He also reportedly brought $14,000 in cash with him.
Suggs met Flug-Presley through a friend the day before the shooting. His friend, Dominique Neal-Hill, loaned Suggs his SUV and had Suggs hold onto a gun for him, according to the Star-Tribune.
The next day, Suggs’ attorney DeVore said Flug-Presley, Sturm, Pettus, and Foreman, learned about the cash that Suggs had and tried to rob him. Pettus allegedly hit Suggs in the head and Flug-Presley pointed Neal-Hill’s gun at Suggs, according to the newspaper.
Suggs reportedly said he shot the four and he believed the two others were armed, according to the Star-Tribune. Police say they found six spent shell casings inside the SUV.
“I was just trying to shoot to stop people from attacking me,” Suggs said according to the newspaper. “Everything after that was just me being scared — confused at the situation.”
Video footage from traffic cameras, a gas station, and a squad car in Wisconsin showed Suggs in the SUV and his father, Darren Osborne, in a Nissan Rogue. They allegedly left the bodies in the SUV in a Wisconsin cornfield. Osborne pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison for helping his son hide the victims’ bodies, according to the Star-Tribune.
Suggs is expected to be sentenced on May 15, the AP reported. He could face a maximum life sentence of 40 years for each of the four counts, according to the Star-Tribune.
