Dakota County has charged a man with murder for allegedly driving his minivan into an Eagan couple and killing them Thursday night.
Jonna Kojo Armartey, 36 and formerly of Eagan, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder; he is accused of deliberately hitting Diane Peterson, 58, and Roger Peterson, 74, with his van shortly before 10 p.m. in a strip-mall parking lot on Hwy. 13 in Eagan.
'Vehicle was … a weapon'
County Attorney James Backstrom said he spent Monday morning with 28 of the couple's relatives and friends.
"Clearly, it appears this vehicle was used as a weapon to cause the death of two innocent individuals," he said. "It's extremely tragic."
Armartey made his first court appearance Monday and was being held in Dakota County jail on $2 million bail. He will next appear in court on July 12.
According to the complaint, Armartey told police that the Petersons had "freaked him out," and "further stated that he was going fast and he hit them hard." Armartey and the couple didn't know each other, the complaint says.
Authorities found the Petersons bleeding and struggling to breathe in the parking lot. They were pronounced dead at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.
After hitting them, Armartey fled the scene. A witness who had been listening to a police scanner recognized Armartey's Dodge Caravan, which he had abandoned less than a mile away outside a restaurant.