A 30-year-old Ethiopian immigrant in St. Paul, Minnesota, allegedly shot and killed three apartment complex employees after staff told him he could not cancel a $65-per-month parking garage contract, a dispute that ended with 21 shell casings on the leasing office floor.
Tsegaab Binessu walked into the leasing office shortly after calling to demand the cancellation, court documents state. When staffers refused, he allegedly opened fire, killing community manager Adam Wilwerding, 43, assistant manager Dena Silcox, 56, and a 25-year-old staffer named Nansi Fuentes Zambrano. The New York Post reported that Binessu shot Wilwerding six times and shot Silcox six times. Fuentes Zambrano was found dead in a back room with a gunshot to the head; she had tried to escape through a window.
Binessu now faces three counts of second-degree murder, each carrying up to 40 years in prison. He was arrested roughly 200 miles north of the crime scene in Virginia, Minnesota, driving the car that belonged to Fuentes Zambrano.
Court documents lay out a sequence that moved from a routine customer-service call to mass killing in a matter of minutes. Binessu had renewed his parking garage contract at the apartment complex. He then called staff to cancel it, telling them he wanted out because he had aspirations to join the U.S. Navy. Staff told him the contract could not be voided after renewal. Binessu said he would come to the leasing office.
He did. Court filings say he "went to the leasing office a short time after that phone call and he executed three workers." Investigators recovered 21 spent shell casings from the office.
Silcox, who had worked in the office for almost a decade, screamed "No, no, no no" when Wilwerding was shot, court documents state. She was then hit five times in rapid succession before a final gunshot sent her to the floor. Fuentes Zambrano apparently tried to flee to a back room and reach a window. She did not make it out.
The brutality of the scene speaks for itself. Three people who showed up for work at an apartment office, answering phones, managing leases, helping tenants, were gunned down over a parking contract worth less than the cost of a monthly streaming bundle.
After the shooting, Binessu allegedly called his roommate and told him what he had done. Court documents say he admitted "he had argued with apartment management and ended up killing three people." The roommate then called police.
Law enforcement found Binessu in Virginia, Minnesota, a small Iron Range city about 200 miles from St. Paul. He was behind the wheel of Fuentes Zambrano's car. The case raises obvious questions about how an immigrant from Ethiopia obtained the firearm used in the alleged attack, questions the available court filings do not answer.
The broader pattern of immigrants involved in violent crimes on American soil continues to fuel demands for tighter vetting and enforcement. Binessu's immigration status at the time of the shooting remains unclear from the court record, and no law enforcement agency has publicly addressed it.
Binessu's statements to investigators paint a picture of grievance directed outward, at the country, the immigration system, and the people around him. Court documents state that he moaned he "hated the American system" during questioning. He told investigators he believed he was "treated unfairly because he is black and an immigrant."
He also claimed he had spent seven years trying to bring his wife and children from Ethiopia to the United States. Court filings note that he "repeatedly said he has lost everything he cared about: his wife, his children, his business, his peace of mind," and that "life without his family no longer made sense."
None of those personal frustrations, however real they may be, explains or justifies walking into an office and shooting three unarmed workers. The victims did not set immigration policy. They managed apartments. Binessu's stated grievances amount to a man who blamed everyone around him for problems no leasing-office employee had the power to fix.
Minnesota has already drawn scrutiny over its handling of immigrants in the criminal justice system. Governor Tim Walz faced sharp criticism for pardoning an illegal immigrant convicted of child sexual abuse, a decision that raised pointed questions about the state's priorities when public safety and immigration intersect.
A vigil held the day after the shooting drew family, friends, and residents who knew the victims as the people who kept the building running.
Wilwerding, 43, was known to residents as "AJ." Ashley Chester, a longtime tenant, spoke about him and the other victims:
"They were just good people, really good people, and you can tell because there's residents that's been here for years, and that says a lot."
Chester added that the community had drawn closer in the aftermath: "We're definitely together, and we're going to stay together. We're family now, at this point."
Dena Silcox, 56, had spent nearly a decade at the complex. Her father, Robert Silcox, described her at the vigil as a "fabulous piano player." Her younger brother Erik said she had "a fire in her belly." Friends who organized a fundraiser for her children called her a person with a "vibrant spirit" that "brought joy to everyone who knew her."
"Her sudden and violent passing has left us all in shock. Dena's children, who meant the world to her, are facing this unimaginable time with bravery and love."
Fuentes Zambrano was just 25. Her friend Estreya Velazquez offered a simple tribute that carried the weight of the loss:
"She deserved so much more than what was given to her."
Across the country, cases involving immigrants charged with violent crimes continue to raise hard questions about enforcement gaps. Federal authorities have recently deported more than 100 Haitian illegal immigrants convicted of serious offenses, and ICE set a single-day arrest record in the Rio Grande Valley, but the St. Paul case underscores how much damage can be done before any system catches up.
Binessu is scheduled to appear in court this week. He faces up to 120 years in prison if convicted on all three counts. No defense attorney has been publicly identified, and no statements from a legal representative have surfaced.
Critical questions remain unanswered. What was Binessu's precise immigration status? How did he obtain a firearm? Was he legally permitted to possess one? The court documents referenced in news reports do not address these points. Neither does any named law enforcement agency, because none has been identified in the public record so far.
Those gaps matter. If Binessu was in the country unlawfully, or if he obtained a weapon he was barred from possessing, the case becomes more than a workplace murder, it becomes another data point in a long and growing ledger of preventable violence tied to failures in immigration enforcement and firearms screening.
Three workers are dead because a man could not cancel a parking contract. Their families will carry that forever. The least the system owes them is a full accounting of how this was allowed to happen.
