Arrest made in St. Paul mutilation murder from '77

For more than a quarter century, Richard Hubert Ireland Jr. had been linked by a single thumb print to a horrific 1977 mutilation murder in St. Paul.

But the fingerprint match, discovered by crime lab investigators in 1983, was not enough on its own, police say, for Ireland to be charged with the murder.

For decades, then, Ireland would live a seemingly quiet life -- until Tuesday, when leaders of St. Paul's new cold-case unit announced they had uncovered the DNA evidence needed to charge Ireland, 59, with second-degree murder in the death of Mark Shemukenas.

Chief John Harrington said the case is proof that St. Paul does not forget homicide victims and their families. "Cold cases really are forever," he said. "[This shows] we never really have moved on... We have not given up."

For the department's cold-case unit, which works with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to gauge the strength of DNA evidence on its shelves, the investigation is the first to result in charges.

Investigators said Ireland slipped up five years after the murder, getting convicted of criminal sexual conduct after reaching into the swim trunks of a 15-year-old boy.

After he was fingerprinted for the sex crime, it was found his right thumb print matched that of a print found on a metal cabinet in Shemukenas' kitchen.

Sgt. Anita Muldoon, supervisor of the cold-case unit, said that "touch DNA" left on a pair of scissors on the victim's bed recently led them back to Ireland. Police took a saliva sample from him and got a match.

Muldoon was there Monday afternoon, she added, when Ireland was picked up without incident at a Minneapolis halfway house for people treated for drug and alcohol addiction.

Fritz Kenas, an uncle of the victim who lives in Montrose, Mich., said Tuesday: "Amen, isn't that something?" when told of the arrest. "I held him as a little baby."

Shemukenas' parents, John and Dorothy, both died not knowing who killed their son, Kenas said.

The victim's sister, Carolyn Kirk, of Florida, who had been briefed about the case earlier by Muldoon, said in a statement: "The family is extremely grateful for the work of the St. Paul Police Department, and it is the family's hope that justice will prevail in the end."

Horrific scene

According to the criminal complaint and police reports:

Officers were called on May 11, 1977, by the landlord of an apartment in a building in the 1900 block of Chelton Avenue, near Prior and Minnehaha Avenues. Inside, the body of Shemukenas, 30, was found naked, his hands tied behind his back with an electrical cord and his mouth apparently taped shut.

He had been castrated and had deep knife wounds in his throat, stomach and back. A fork was stuck in his chest.

Police, having determined that Shemukenas was gay, distributed posters about the case in various gay bars in the Twin Cities area, suspecting that he had met his eventual killer in one of the establishments.

Six years later, police discovered the fingerprint match. But Ireland denied knowing Shemukenas. Authorities forced him then to provide hair samples, but none matched hair taken from a knife and bottle at the scene, according to the murder complaint filed Tuesday.

Asked how long the suspect and victim might have known one another, Muldoon said the speculation was it was a brief acquaintance. Ireland has not admitted to the crime, she added. He made his first court appearance Tuesday.

A former neighbor, Bruce Rowell of St. Paul, said Tuesday that he and Ireland used to "go places together," and that he had no clue Ireland would be suspected of homicide or any other crime. Ireland had moved to a brain-injury facility in Duluth a couple of years ago, Rowell said, and "I lost track of him."

Said Muldoon, "He's been rather elusive."

More to come

The cold-case unit -- staffed by Muldoon with the help of about a dozen retired investigators -- has been in operation for about a year, and is being funded with a U.S. Department of Justice grant of about $270,000, Senior Commander Tim Lynch, head of the homicide unit, said Tuesday.

"I'm easily looking at a dozen cases that are ongoing," Muldoon said.

Lynch said homicide investigations typically are painstaking, and cold cases can be even more so. But on Tuesday, he relished the payoff. After 32 years, he said, to have a DNA link to a pair of scissors believed connected to the crime, "it's pretty amazing," he said.

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