Target of bizarre plot still shaken

Jim Fratto was the randomly chosen victim of a young man's disturbing fantasy: to kill a stranger and cut out his heart and eyelids.

By ABBY SIMONS, Star Tribune

Last update: September 4, 2008 - 11:18 PM

When Jim Fratto arrives home from work at night, he sweeps each room with the beam of a flashlight. That's after he double-locks the solid door behind him and checks the windows at his house in his quiet Woodbury neighborhood.

Fratto says he can't help himself. It's how he tries to ease his mind a month after he was the target in a bizarre random murder plot allegedly hatched by a Woodbury heart transplant recipient who later admitted to police his desire to kill a stranger.

"I lock myself in my room at night," Fratto said. "I don't want to live like that."

Fratto plans to breathe easier now that prosecutors have leveled an attempted murder charge against 18-year-old Andrew Busskohl, the recent high school graduate who, according to authorities, told a friend he planned to stab Fratto, then cut out his heart and eyelids because Fratto, who lived alone, was an easy target.

He admitted to having broken out Fratto's window Aug. 6 for easy entry into the home, just a few blocks away from where Busskohl lived with his family.

A search warrant revealed several tools in Busskohl's possession, including a knife, scalpel, gloves and a map to Fratto's home.

Fratto said he was baffled even more that Busskohl was charged at the time of his arrest only with attempted burglary and harassment with a dangerous weapon. Washington County Attorney Doug Johnson said last month that he had filed the most serious charges he could, and that an act of serious violence or other substantial steps toward murder would be necessary to justify an attempted murder charge.

An Aug. 29 criminal complaint does not say why the attempted murder charge was filed, and Johnson was not available Thursday to answer questions.

"This case is very disturbing to us," Johnson said last month. "We see behavior that is very scary, and yet we're limited by the law as to how we can respond to it."

Busskohl was released from jail on $100,000 bond last month on the condition that he undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He has not been re-arrested. He will in court again next month for a hearing.

Busskohl's attorney, Joe Friedberg, told CNN that Busskohl was taking seven or eight medications -- a combination of anti-rejection medicine and anti-depressants -- at the time of his arrest, and that could have led to his behavior.

Fratto said he suspects local and national media attention was a factor in the additional charge. He added that he is glad to see a charge he believes should have been leveled all along.

"To me, this was always an attempted murder charge, because of all the detailed planning, premeditating, plotting and final behavior in the end," Fratto said. "When they were trying to prosecute this as attempted burglary, he didn't come to my house to steal anything but me. That's the upsetting part of it, so the charges are very appropriate."

Abby Simons • 612-673-4921

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