Suspect charged in deadly shooting of 2-year-old boy in St. Paul

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - A suspect has been arrested and charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a 2-year-old boy in St. Paul, Minnesota last week. 

On Dec. 23 around 1:20 p.m. medics responded to a 911 call at an apartment on the 800 block of Rice Street, where they found a 2-year-old boy who had been shot in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.  

Police have identified the victim as Jayse Damir Wilson.

The suspect, 39-year-old Earl Williams of St. Paul, turned himself in on the evening of Dec. 25. He was arrested and has been charged with second-degree manslaughter and two counts of illegal possession of a firearm. 

According to the criminal complaint, Wilson’s mother had received a "frantic" phone call from Williams, who was watching her children at her apartment, telling her to come home because the 2-year-old had shot himself in the head. He claimed he had left a gun in the bathroom and the boy "got to it." 

Williams told her he was going to have one of her daughters call the police. He then left the apartment and stopped answering the mother’s phone calls. 

Police interviewed one of the victim’s sisters who was in the apartment at the time of the deadly shooting. She told police she was in the living room watching TV and Wilson was in the bedroom. She said she heard a loud bang and got up to check on the boy, but Williams walked out of the bedroom and told her to stay there. 

The girl said Williams paced the apartment for around 10 minutes and told her he did not want her leaving the living room. 

Williams told the girl to call 911, then he left the apartment. Once he left, she ran into the bedroom to check on her brother and found him lying on his back on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. 

The victim’s brother and another of his sisters were also in the apartment at the time. The three siblings moved their brother from the bathroom to a bedroom and the 911 operator gave them instructions for performing CPR. 

The girl told police she had never seen a gun and that she did not see Williams with a gun that day, although her mother told police she had seen Williams with guns in the past.  

Williams made his first court appearance on the charges on Monday morning. A judge set his bail at $250,000, although prosecutors asked for it to be higher. 

This was the 34th homicide of the year in St. Paul.