Boy, 15, arrested in neighbor's death

When the father of a 15-year-old Minneapolis boy got a call Wednesday from a credit-card company about authorizing a purchase, he was puzzled and dismayed.

The credit card, which was stolen, had landed in his son's hands.

The man's dismay grew when he learned that the card belonged to Pirkko Gaultney, a sweet and chatty 70-year-old widow who lived just two blocks away in north Minneapolis' Folwell neighborhood, police and neighbors said.

He and another neighbor went to check on Gaultney at her home in the 3600 block of Fremont Avenue N. They found her car missing and a side window of her house broken, and called police.

When police went into the house about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, they found her body. She had bled to death, and the knife used to stab her lay nearby.

Police arrested the boy on suspicion of murder; his exact role remains under investigation.

On Thursday, residents were struggling to deal with the second death of a vulnerable person in the past five days in their North Side neighborhood.

On Sunday, the badly beaten body of 4-year-old Demond Reed was found in the closet of a duplex a few blocks away, on Morgan Avenue N. A woman whose care Demond had been left in has been charged in his death.

"I think these homicides are an illustration of our inhumanity," said Roberta Englund, executive director of the Folwell Neighborhood Association. "Both are innocent victims. Demond simply was too young to defend himself. Pirkko became vulnerable because of her age and the fact she lived alone."

Gaultney had lived in the house, which had recently been renovated, for more than 20 years. She loved to garden and worked for Lifetouch Inc., a Minnesota company that specializes in school and church photography.

Englund said she respected Gaultney, who was active with the neighborhood association. But she also knew and liked the suspect's family.

"We had faith in how the boy's father was raising his family to the point that we sent the boy's older brother to a leadership conference in Washington, D.C., in 2004," Englund said. "We didn't have that kind of contact with the younger one.

"But his father needs to be commended for the action he took" in investigating his son's actions, she said.

The suspect's father cooperated fully with police, "which had to be really trying," Fourth Precinct Inspector Mike Martin said.

Investigators have good leads that could help resolve the case quickly, he said.

"Both these homicides have caused people to question their safety, but things have been going very well in the neighborhood," Martin said.

Lt. Amelia Huffman, head of the homicide unit, wouldn't say if police were searching for more suspects, but the investigation remains active. Gaultney's stolen car was recovered, and police are trying to determine what items might have been taken from her house.

For neighbors, shock, sorrow

John and Jamie Flaga, who live in Folwell, said they helped Gaultney build her new porch last spring. She would stand outside for hours admiring it, they said.

Gaultney was a devout Christian who spoke Finnish, loved gardening and told Jamie Flaga that lutefisk was the first food she ever ate, she said.

Her husband, Ezra Gaultney Jr., died in 2002.

When they first moved into the neighborhood, they didn't see much of her, they said. That may have been a reaction to a 2005 burglary in her home.

John Flaga shoveled her sidewalks. It's just the kind of thing you do in the neighborhood, he said.

"John became her adopted son," Jamie Flaga said. "He cried when he got the call about her death."

Block club leader Cheryl Flaga, who is John's mother and who lives four houses away from Gaultney's house, said neighbors constantly check on each and look for things out of the ordinary.

"Not because we are nosy, but we care like everybody is our own family," she said. "That's how we knew something was wrong when Pirkko's car was missing."

On Thursday morning, Cheryl Flaga was taking many calls from people who wanted to know more about Gaultney's death. Some were angry, others scared, she said.

Jamie Flaga said Folwell is filled with great people and people shouldn't judge the North Side because of "an incident like this."

"Pirkko was just a cute, sweet woman," she said. "It could have happened to anybody. You pray it doesn't happen to you."

David Chanen • 612-673-4465