Charges Filed After Woman Fatally Stabbed in Waite Park
A man has been charged with murder after a 52-year-old woman was found fatally stabbed inside a Waite Park apartment in February.
Police were called Feb. 6 to an apartment building on the 300 block of Park Meadows Dr. in Waite Park to conduct a welfare check. Officers entered the apartment and discovered the victim deceased in the living room with lacerations to her neck.
Investigators were called to the scene and discovered that the door to the woman’s apartment had been locked and her phone, wallet, apartment keys and key fob were all missing.
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage from Feb. 5 and saw the victim enter the apartment building around 12:12 p.m. A short time later, a man, now identified as Jarquez Javon Bedford, 28, knocked on the locked entry door and was let inside the building by the victim. The two talked briefly before walking together toward the first-floor hallway.
Within an hour, surveillance video captured Bedford exiting out of the back of the apartment building, alone and with his sweatshirt turned inside out. Bedford was then seen coming and going from the apartment for multiple hours and at one point carrying a bag of trash. Records from the apartment building show that Bedford used the victim’s key fob to enter the building.
Investigators spoke with tenants at the apartment building and learned that Bedford had been staying with other residents of the building on the third floor. Surveillance video from inside the apartment revealed that Bedford had gone upstairs after leaving the victim’s apartment, changed out of the sweatshirt and into a jacket.
During a statement provided to investigators, Bedford denied being involved with the homicide, but provided multiple details that were not generally known to the public. Bedford said he knew someone that told him they had assaulted and robbed the victim, but Bedford repeatedly changed his story.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) conducted DNA testing on a knife recovered from inside the victim’s apartment that matched Bedford. Bedford’s DNA was also found on the victim’s purse, a cigarette located in the bedroom, a marijuana blunt located in the living room and a sweatshirt. Blood was also found on the clothing Bedford was seen wearing on the surveillance video.
The Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy, finding the victim suffered three to four incisional wounds across her neck. The cause of death was due to sharp-force injury to the neck and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
According to the criminal complaint, Bedford fled the area but was taken into custody in Ramsey County on Feb. 14 for a probation violation warrant out of Kansas. Bedford remains in custody at the Ramsey County Jail, where he is also awaiting trial for being an ineligible person carrying a firearm.
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