Star Tribune
Man killed his mother in her Uptown condo, fled to Hawaii before his arrest in Kentucky
Murder charges against a man with a history of alleged violent outbursts against his mother were released Thursday that say he beat her in her Uptown condo more than two months ago and fled to Hawaii before his arrest in Kentucky.
Nicholas D. DeRousse, 30, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree intentional and unintentional murder in connection with the death of Stephanie DeRousse, 60, some time in mid-March in her home in the 3100 block of W. Lake Street.
A warrant was issued for the son’s arrest, and he was captured on May 18 by police 760 miles from Minneapolis in a park in Murray, Ky. He remains in the Calloway County jail as of midday Thursday awaiting extradition and his first court appearance in Hennepin County, which has yet to be scheduled.
An autopsy by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that Stephanie DeRousse had broken ribs, and bruising to her legs, neck, eyes and elsewhere on her head.
The cause of death, the charges read, was “blunt force trauma and strangulation with the possibility of suffocation due to [a] blanket over her head and her weakened condition from the beating.”
According to the criminal complaint, which was obtained Thursday by the Star Tribune from the County Attorney’s Office:
Acting on a request for a welfare check, officers entered the condo, detected a foul smell and located Stephanie DeRousse dead on a bedroom floor. The officers looked beneath a blanket wrapped around her head and saw numerous injuries.
Clayton DeRousse, who was at the condo with police, told officers that his older brother Nicholas DeRousse no longer lived with his mother and had recently moved back to Murray. He said he last spoke with his mother on March 11, when she was vacationing in Spain, but he failed to reach her upon her return.
Condo building video surveillance showed Stephanie DeRousse returning home about 8:50 p.m. on March 12 and again the next afternoon receiving a food delivery.
“This is the last time the victim is seen alive,” the complaint read.
Video also revealed Nicholas DeRousse at the condo four times between March 13 and March 15 before he took a flight to Denver, then a connecting flight to Los Angeles. Two days later, he was on a plane to Hawaii. The complaint did not address his return to the U.S. mainland.
First in June 2017 and again in April 2018, Stephanie DeRousse petitioned the court for orders for protection against Nicholas DeRousse, alleging outbursts directed at her that at times turned violent.
Both petitions said Stephanie DeRousse called police at least twice about her son’s behavior. Court records show no charges were filed in connection with the mother’s allegations, although he was arrested in April 2018, charged and convicted of a gross misdemeanor for resisting officers who came to the condo to enforce one of the protection orders.
In the first filing, Stephanie DeRousse said that on June 13, 2017, her son was “acting paranoid, agitated and seeing things.” She said he got angry over her feeding his son a grilled cheese sandwich. She said he called her vulgar names, injured her wrist while grabbing it and blocked her from leaving the condo they shared.
Two weeks earlier, the filing continued, she said her son “began violently waving [a] bat around. [He said] his father and brother are coming from St. Louis to take his son away.”
She withdrew the request for protection a few days later, explaining in the second petition, “I believed him that he was going to get help and become a better person.”
The second petition followed a string of incidents in 2018 that spanned nearly two weeks until April 10, when she alleged that her son soiled her bed, poured bleach on her clothes and she suspected him of stealing $20,000 in jewelry.
Star Tribune
Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza killed 15
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.
Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.
Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.
The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.
“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.
The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.
Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.
Much of the wood waste in the metro area is sent to a processing site near Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul, where it is stored before being burned to produce energy at the St. Paul Cogeneration plant downtown.
Cogeneration provides power to about half of downtown and was originally built to manage elm-tree waste in response to Dutch elm disease. The plant burns approximately 240,000 tons of wood each year, according to Michael Auger, senior vice president of District Energy in St. Paul.
Jim Calkins, a certified landscape horticulturalist who has been involved in discussions about the problem, said he thinks using wood for energy is the most logical solution.
“The issue is, we don’t have enough facilities to be able to handle that, at least in the Twin Cities,” Calkins said. “So there has to be dollars to support transportation to get the wood to those places, or in some cases, to upgrade some of those facilities such that they are able to burn wood.”
Plans are in place to convert Koda Energy in Shakopee to burn ash wood, which could potentially handle around 40,000 tons of wood waste, but that would take around two years to establish, according to Klapperich.
In some areas of the state, cities have resorted to burning excess wood waste because they felt they had no other option. Open burning wood releases a lot of carbon into the air, Klapperich said.
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