Murderer tells his story of '89 slaying

At his sentencing, the killer talked about the night when he killed a St. Paul salesman who stopped to help him.

By ANTHONY LONETREE, Star Tribune

Last update: July 9, 2009 - 11:35 PM

When Larry Brigman last spoke to the judge, he admitted to the crime -- the 1989 stabbing death of a St. Paul man -- but couldn't recall the details.

Thursday, then, before he was sentenced to 27 years in prison by Ramsey County District Judge William H. Leary, Brigman said that he could not stand silent, that he had to explain what had happened that night. In the process, the murderer, now 59, confirmed for the victim's family members what they long had known.

Their brother, Dale Heinold, 54, a salesman about to realize his dreams of starting his own business, was a caring soul.

On May 14, 1989, Brigman told the judge, he was homeless in St. Paul, walking in the rain when Heinold drove by and offered him a ride. They picked up beer and pizza and went to Heinold's Battle Creek area apartment, where Brigman was to stay. Sleeping arrangements were made, Brigman said, and Heinold went to bed.

Afterward, however, a friend of Heinold's showed up at the apartment, Brigman said, and angrily wondered why Brigman, who had removed his wet clothes, was wearing the man's robe.

The man stabbed him in the hand, Brigman said. When the visitor went to Heinold's bedroom to confront him about the robe, Brigman "went berserk ... went crazy." Somehow, the visitor escaped, Brigman said, and it was Heinold, then, who ended up being stabbed by Brigman -- more than 30 times, according to the Ramsey County medical examiner.

Brigman, who'd had a lifetime of troubles relating to alcohol abuse, had been lost in the "insanity of the moment," he said. But he took full blame for what he had done, and he wanted to make clear to the judge and to the family what he thought of Heinold: "He's the best person I ever met."

Outside the courtroom afterward, the victim's sister, Elaine Invie, who'd discovered her brother's body, said, "I don't know if I believe it. But it doesn't matter. He held himself accountable. He does seem remorseful."

She was thankful, she added, for the "good things" that Brigman said about her brother.

Earlier, when giving her own statement to the judge, Invie spoke of never being able to shake the image of her brother dead in his bed, and how she would have to pray for God's forgiveness for hating his killer.

Brigman, now imprisoned in Ohio for a similar stabbing death in February 1989, was identified as a suspect in Heinold's murder after the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension matched his DNA in a national database in 2006.

He was charged in February 2007 with two counts of second-degree murder. In April, he pleaded to one count of second-degree murder. The plea was an Alford plea because Brigman admitted at that time that he'd committed the crime but didn't remember the details.

Under the sentence imposed Thursday, the clock on Brigman's 27-year sentence starts now. (He was to be released from prison in Ohio in 2014.) With good behavior, he could be out of prison, under supervised release, in about 18 years.

Anthony Lonetree • 612-673-4109