Family of murder victim prior to Amber Alert speaks: ‘It was a shocker’
Crow Wing Co. Amber Alert: New details emerge
New details have emerged after a man allegedly fatally shot a man and abducted a pregnant woman and her children, causing an Amber Alert to go out. The woman and her children were found safe, and the suspect has been taken into custody. FOX 9's Corin Hoggard has the latest.
CROW WING CO., Minn. (FOX 9) - A murder and a kidnapping in west central Minnesota sparked an Amber Alert most people in Minnesota received.
What we know
Gunfire, arson, and kidnapping rocked a remote rural road just outside Brainerd on Friday morning.
Crow Wing County deputies say they got a call just before 2 a.m. about a shooting and found 62-year-old Lyle Maske dead.
Family reacts
"It was a shocker," said one of Maske's older brothers. "We're going to miss him."
He was the sixth of nine siblings and his family members tell FOX 9 he wasn't a perfect man, but he was the kind of guy who would help anybody out, and always made people laugh.
They said Maske was not a violent person, but seems to have gotten caught up in a bad situation.
Almost immediately after he was killed, sheriff's deputies knew the suspect was a 35-year-old neighbor who wasn’t done committing crimes.
"This person ended up shooting the guy and abducting these four little kids and with their mother," said Crow Wing County Sheriff Eric Klang. "So very, very serious, very scary, I'm sure, for them. And it's scary for us as well."
The suspect was a neighbor to Maske and to the pregnant woman and children he allegedly kidnapped a half-mile down the road.
On social media, he posted about a relationship with the woman, but investigators say they’re not clear yet on how everyone is related.
They say there’s definitely a connection between the homicide and the kidnapping.
Amber Alert successful
The apparent abduction prompted the Amber Alert, which Sheriff Eric Klang says worked exactly as it should within about an hour.
"There was a very astute Morrison County resident who located that vehicle and matched it up to the Amber Alert this morning that he received and was able to call law enforcement," Sheriff Klang said.
The pregnant woman and her four children were not physically harmed.
The suspect has not been charged with a crime yet, so we’re not naming him, but we looked into his criminal history and found a prior conviction for threatening violence against an ex-girlfriend, a series of burglaries, and a sex crime against a minor.
The suspect is now in the Crow Wing County jail and investigators expect to have charges filed in the coming days, but until then they don’t intend to release more information about what happened in the woods.