HINCKLEY, Minn. — A central Minnesota man is charged with second-degree murder and a handful of other offenses after a dispute involving his former girlfriend and her current partner.
Prosecutors in Pine County detail the charges in a criminal complaint filed against 36-year-old John Thomas Quitter, who reportedly shot the victim while his ex was retrieving some property from a trailer where Quitter lives in Hinckley.
Pine County deputies were called to Essentia Hospital in Sandstone around 6 a.m. Sept. 6 and learned that someone had dropped off a man who appeared to have been shot in the chest by a shotgun shell containing bird shot. Doctors said the victim had more than 250 BB wounds, with a large number of them centered on the left side of his chest. That man did not survive.
Hospital personnel say the man who dropped the shooting victim left a note with the name John Quitter, a Hinckley address and a telephone number belonging to the victim's girlfriend, who is Quitter's ex. Quitter was asked to stay on scene but left in the victim's truck.
Investigators spoke with the girlfriend of the victim, who reportedly told them they had driven to the property where Quitter lived to retrieve some of her things. There, she said, she and the victim began arguing, and when she went inside the trailer the victim ran up and punched out a window. The woman told detectives she then heard a shot, ran outside and found the victim in his truck non-responsive.
She said Quitter then got in the truck and drove the man to the hospital.
BCA crime scene technicians were called in to search the property and found spent shells in the yard and a pump-style shotgun in the woods with a live round in the chamber.
Just before 1 p.m. that day authorities located the victim's truck driving on a Pine County Road and began pursuing it. Deputies say the man at the wheel, later identified as Quitter, was swerving from side to side and at one point the truck went airborne. When they were finally able to box him in and stop the pickup, deputies say Quitter refused to get out of the vehicle and had to be forcibly removed.
The criminal complaint says Quitter had blood on his clothing and on the driver's side door of the truck. Detectives who questioned him say the defendant denied shooting C.A., but at one point also stated he did shoot him but not intentionally.
A criminal records search says John Quitter is ineligible to possess firearms due to previous convictions for controlled substance crimes. Along with three counts involving second-degree murder, he is also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and fleeing police.
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