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Man sentenced to 20 years in 1984 cold case Minneapolis murder
Matthew Brown admitted to following a woman from the bar to her apartment the morning of July 19, 1984, and then stabbing Robert Miller when he tried to step in.
MINNEAPOLIS — A former Minnesota state prison security counselor will himself serve a 20-year sentence behind bars after admitting his guilt in a murder that went unsolved for decades.
Matthew Brown was in a Hennepin County Courtroom Monday, just over 40 years after the fatal stabbing of Robert Miller inside his south Minneapolis apartment. The prosecution and defense agreed to a 20-year sentence after Brown agreed to plead guilty, in part to spare his victim’s family the pain of having to sit through a trial.
Brown’s attorney read an allocation for the defendant, admitting that early the morning of July 19, 1984 he followed a woman home from the bar and then broke into the apartment she went into. The woman ran into the bathroom, and when the 32-year-old Miller jumped in to intervene, Brown brutally stabbed him to death.
Prosecutors said after the sentencing that 20 years “isn’t enough time,” but that the cold case had significant challenges – among them, many of the witnesses and investigators who contributed to the investigation are now dead.
KARE 11’s Lou Raguse spoke with the victim’s brother, Jim Miller, following the sentencing. Miller recalled sharing a bedroom with “Bobby” when the two were younger, and expressed gratitude that Robert got a chance to hold his youngest child on the Fourth of July that year, just weeks before the murder.
Jim Miller says while his brother’s violent death has haunted him for decades, he is doing his best to honor Robert by not holding on to hate, as “Bobby” would not have wanted that. Miller also noted that Brown – who eventually relocated to Moose Lake, where he worked at a prison for sexual offenders as a security counselor – rebuilt his life with a wife and children while living less than 30 minutes from Miller and his family. Miller added that he knows people who knew Brown and had no idea his brother’s killer was so close.
Miller added that the family is happy the case ended with a guilty plea so they didn’t have to sit through a trial, and told Raguse that they are not upset with prosecutors for the deal that was struck. He also thanked the police for refusing to give up on the case.
After growing cold over more than three decades, investigators got a breakthrough in the case in 2018 when advances in technology allowed the Minnesota BCA to develop a DNA profile built on blood recovered from the scene at 3209 Girard Ave. S. There were no hits in the nationwide system, but investigators soon consulted with a genealogist and determined that a Minnesota man named Matthew Russell Brown of Barnum was a potential suspect. They were able to collect a DNA sample from a plastic disposable cup Brown used in March of 2023, and the profile matched the blood collected at the murder scene.
Brown, who had relocated to Illinois, was extradited to Minnesota and charged with murder, burglary and assault in Robert Miller’s death.
Firefighters and the medical examiner were present at a home on Lancaster Lane around midnight.
MAPLE GROVE, Minn. — A house fire turned fatal overnight Wednesday in Maple Grove.
The scene was active around midnight at a home on Lancaster Lane. A KARE 11 photographer said they saw a body being removed from the house, and the medical examiner on scene.
KARE 11 has reached out to the Maple Grove Fire Department for more information.
This story will be updated once more information is available.
Weed companies will be able to consider commercial real estate property as a possible site location
ST PAUL, Minn. — The St. Paul City Council passed an ordinance Wednesday for adult-use cannabis zoning within city limits.
“What we’ve done today is just set a zoning standard that says here is where you can consider and contemplate having those types of facilities,” said Council President Mitra Jalali.
These businesses can look at commercial real estate spaces within city limits.
“Other cities around the state frankly are rejecting the economic opportunity that’s possible saying ‘You can’t have these anywhere,’ they’re using really regressive zoning, and so I hope St. Paul can set another end of the spectrum and encourage other cities to follow suit,” Jalali said.
She said opening more of the city to cannabis operations could bring in more money.
“It’s really important to realize the economic opportunity it represents, right. We can generate and collect local sales tax. We can use that revenue to help the city in other ways,” Jalali said. “I think that we have regulatory structures in place to be able to support safety to make sure that everything is following state law. That is one of the cities rules.”
However, some people aren’t as excited. Zev Radziwall, executive director of St. Anthony Park Council, said his neighborhood is concerned cultivation facilities could impact public health.
“The biggest concern is air quality,” he said. “How do we mitigate that odor, so we don’t have the skunky smell permeating throughout neighborhoods and affecting residents.”
Jalali said there are regulations in place to control odor.
“The state law sets out a standard of how facilities have to regulate odors on and off the property line,” he said. “We took what state law said and we mirrored it into our local ordinance so the city can also be on the enforcement side of that and basically have an additional layer of regulatory support.”
Radziwall said he would have liked to see a more conservative distance including daycares. Currently, the ordinance mandates weed facilities to be at least 300 feet away from primary and secondary schools. The council talked about including daycares but decided to possibly bring up it for consideration at another time.
The ordinance would allow these businesses to cultivate and sell all under one roof. Radziwall said St. Anthony has a lot of warehouses where these businesses could potentially grow, which is why he would like to see tighter regulation.
“We hope that it’s the beginning of a conversation not the end,” he said.
Jalali said by allowing these businesses to open in more areas, it should help prevent over concentration in one area.
“Part of the logic actually in having the zoning being pretty permissive is that when you have less area that you can do these businesses in it does concentrate them, so I think what we need to do is look at the applications that come in, see if that’s shaping up in any type of way or pattern that’s cause for concern,” she said.
Ryan Beierman says his son, Owen, shot the 200-pound bear during a hunting trip near Siren, Wisconsin.
SIREN, Wis. — A 12-year-old boy saved his dad from a bear attack at their cabin north of River Falls in Siren, Wisconsin.
Owen Beierman says he shot the bear when it started mauling his dad, Ryan. The two had been hunting at the beginning of September when it happened.
Ryan says Owen first spotted the bear that day and shot at it but missed. The injured animal ran into the woods and the two waited before going after it. They performed grid searches, followed a blood trail and even used a neighbor’s dog to try and track it.
They didn’t have much luck, until the dog led them into an overgrown area several hours later and the 200-pound bear was about 10 feet from Ryan when it attacked.
“I had the pistol in my hand and I was hitting him in the head, trying to get him to let go,” said Ryan. “I looked down and all I saw was teeth and claws coming at my face and I remember hearing the first bite.”
He says a fight ensued and then he heard Owen take a shot. He felt the bear’s weight shift and he was able to shove it off of himself.
“I saw him (the bear) knock him to the ground and I just saw the black outline and shot over the dog’s back and hit the bear,” said Owen. “I just felt like, shoot the bear and save my dad; it’s all I really remember.”
Ryan has stitches to repair the deep wounds on his face and has bite marks all along one arm and a leg. He has other scratches along his face and head, too.
“He needed to go to the hospital when I saw his cheek hanging,” said Owen.
A neighbor helped the two get out of the woods and to the hospital. Ryan says the looks on the faces of the police officers who later helped them made him realize how badly he was injured.
“He was trying to live and I was trying to live at that point,” said Ryan about the bear.
The father and son eventually claimed the bear’s remains and are now debating how to mount the animal and where to put it. Ryan says he plans to bear hunt again in the future — despite the story he says his wife didn’t even believe when he first told her after it happened over the phone.
“I don’t care if they believe it or not, I got the scars to prove it,” said Ryan, laughing.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says the attack on Ryan is the 14th in the state since 2013.
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