MINNEAPOLIS — Tim Amacher, the ex-boyfriend and father of shooting victim Nicole Lenway’s child, did not pull the trigger. But prosecutors described him as the “screenwriter, director, and producer” in the story of what happened to the Minneapolis Police crime scene investigator on April 20, 2022.
“What he didn’t know is that Nicole would survive and be able to tell her story,” prosecutor Jacob Fischmann told the jury during opening statements Thursday morning for Amacher’s trial. He's charged with aiding attempted first-degree murder and aiding an offender after the fact.
On the evening of the shooting, Lenway had just arrived at FamilyWise, a supervised parenting center on University Avenue in Minneapolis, to pick up her son who was inside having a court-ordered supervised visit with Amacher, when someone ran up and shot her three times from behind.
“After years of trying to get custody of his son from his mother Nicole, after being denied by the courts, after concocting bogus stories of child abuse, after concocting bogus stories of abuse he himself suffered at the hands of Nicole, and after being told by the courts that because of these bogus allegations, all of his parenting time had to be supervised, Mr. Amacher decided to take matters into his own hands,” Fischmann said. “He decided to have Nicole Lenway killed. Better yet, to have someone do it for him. And who better than his young, former Taekwondo student/now-girlfriend, Colleen Larson.”
Larson is also charged with attempted first-degree murder and is scheduled to go on trial in January. She is listed as a potential witness in Amacher’s trial, but there is no indication that she will actually testify. According to court documents, she also confessed to her role in the crime, but it remains unclear whether that confession will be used as evidence in Amacher’s trial.
Amacher’s attorney Larry Reed took advantage of that ambiguity to tell the jury that there’s no proof Larson was even the shooter.
“Not one witness will sit on that stand and say he did anything to aid and abet any kind of shooting,” Reed said in his opening statement.
Reed pointed out the prosecution has a witness list including 100 names and asked the jury to consider whether each witness provides any facts to indicate aiding and abetting.
Reed claimed the prosecution doesn’t have a case as they are “throwing a bunch of stuff out and hoping it’ll stick.”
“My client has been wrongfully accused,” Reed said. “He has done nothing.”
In addition, Reed at various points insinuated and outright accused the Minneapolis Police Department of treating this case differently, even planting evidence, because the victim Lenway is their employee.
The prosecution laid out a timeline for the jury that included details on Amacher and Lenway’s relationship and custody battle. According to the state’s opening statement:
- They started dating in 2012 and broke up in 2015. Lenway discovered she was pregnant after the breakup and they formed plans to co-parent.
- When Lenway started dating someone else, a co-worker at MPD, “things changed significantly.”
- Amacher would attempt to get Lenway back, then shame her. At one point he painted on her garage door “Slut for Cops.”
- Amacher filed a domestic abuse allegation against Lenway months after an incident allegedly occurred and one day before filing for custody of their son. A jury acquitted Lenway.
- Finally, a leading child abuse investigator in Minnesota determined the only abuse of the child was putting him through repeated false accusations. The courts then rule that Amacher’s visitation with him must be supervised.
Regarding the evidence they plan to show the jury, Fischmann said police found discharged cartridge cases as well as unspent shells at the scene from a .380 gun. Investigators found the same ammo at Amacher’s home in St. Paul and discharged shells that the prosecution's expert plans to testify were shot from the same gun.
Despite finding many guns at the Amacher’s home and a box for a .380, they never found an actual .380 gun. During opening statements, it was revealed that Amacher admitted to once owning two .380s, but he sold one of them to Steve Schleicher, a Twin Cities attorney who assisted in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.
Police retrieved that gun from Schleicher, and tested it, but it was not a match to the weapon used on Lenway. Amacher claimed he gave the other .380 to Lenway at one time, which she denies. The second .380 has never been found, prosecutors said.
The jury will hear from experts on cell phone technology, which prosecutors say was used to track a black Dodge Ram owned by Amacher to the scene of the crime at the time it was committed. Surveillance video showed the shooter exit a black vehicle.
Fischmann told the jury the Ram's Wi-Fi technology essentially makes it a "big cellphone," connecting to nearby cell towers, allowing it to be tracked.
Finally, the prosecution claimed Amacher tried to conceal his car by adding Superman stickers and a temporary license plate days after the shooting. Fischmann said initial surveillance video did not show the car with stickers or a temporary license plate leading up to the night of the shooting.
But in his opening statement, Reed denied that the shooter’s vehicle belonged to Amacher and that his Dodge had a "GT" symbol in the back not seen on the shooter's truck.
Reed claimed the defendant's multiple allegations to Child Protective Services were not “bogus” and that Amacher was just trying to properly report injuries.
In response to the multiple guns found at Amacher's residence, Reed described Amacher as a “second-amendment guy." He also claimed the bullet casings found at his residence has nothing to do with the case.
At one point in his opening statement, Reed attempted to tarnish Lenway's credibility, claiming she once confessed to Amacher that she fabricated evidence in the MPD shooting of Jamar Clark. Reed told the jury Amacher gave that information to MPD internal affairs.
Court records allege that Amacher gave MPD internal affairs false information on more than one occasion regarding Lenway and her current boyfriend, MPD Officer Donovan Ford.
The first witness who testified Thursday was an FBI agent and expert in cell phone technology. The trial is expected to last two weeks.
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