St. Louis man held in slayings at Brooklyn Park day care

Eddie Matthew Mosley drove from St. Louis to a Brooklyn Park home day care last month, allegedly intending to kill a 15-year-old relative he had been accused of raping last fall.

The girl wasn't there. Instead, with execution-style shots to the head, Mosley killed the day care owner, DeLois Brown, and her elderly parents, authorities alleged Monday as they announced charges against him in the April 9 crime that stunned the city.

"We believe the motive was to kill the victim of the criminal sexual conduct case," said Brooklyn Park police Lt. Eric Nelson. "The child was old enough to testify."

Mosley, 34, could receive up to 40 years in prison if convicted of any of the three counts of second-degree intentional murder against him.

According to court documents, he had recently received a summons charging him with first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Minnesota; he was accused of raping the girl last October in Wright County. When he learned of those charges, Mosley told the girl's mother, his half-sister, that she needed to "make it go away" and she refused, according to the complaint filed Monday.

The half-sister said she received a number of phone calls and text messages from Mosley between April 4 and 6.

Mosley left his home in St. Louis on April 8, cellphone records indicate, in his vehicle with another man and with a bicycle in the back, according to court documents.

In Brooklyn Park early on the morning of April 9, Mosley took the bike out and told the companion to buy coffee and a pack of cigarettes at a nearby convenience store and return later to the area, the charges said.

Mosley didn't know that the girl no longer was being taken to Brown's home before school, according to the complaint.

A chilling scene

Moments after dropping off her child at the day care at 6:15 a.m., a woman saw a man on a BMX-style bicycle outside Brown's house, at 8117 College Park Drive. When she passed him in her car, she noticed him head back toward Brown's.

The woman called Brown, and heard her say, "Stop." The phone went dead in mid-conversation.

When the woman returned to the house minutes later, she found the victims dead. Brown, 59, partially standing, was leaning over a blood-soaked bed, clutching her father, James Bolden Sr., 83. Clover Bolden, 81, was lying in the next bed. All three had multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

Her child had not been harmed.

The suspect fled on the bicycle.

The complaint against Mosley said he pedaled to his vehicle, put the bicycle in and hopped into the driver's seat.

With his face covered in blood, he told his companion, "I [screwed] up," and then removed a handgun and placed it on the center console before he began the drive back to Missouri, according to the charges.

Parents had recently arrived

The Boldens had left their home in Centerville, Ill., a suburb of St. Louis, six days before the shootings, to move in with Brown.

Authorities believe Mosley knew the victims, Nelson said.

"I don't know anything about him," said James Bolden Jr., of Brooklyn Park, the Boldens' son and Brown's brother. "I don't know what kind of person could have done this."

One of Brown's daughters said Monday that she and other family members were not ready to comment.

Authorities in St. Louis arrested Mosley on April 13 in the sexual assault case, Nelson said. Hennepin County authorities picked him up and brought him to Wright County, where he was jailed April 28.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Mosley had been charged with murder in 2003, but that prosecutors dismissed the case two years later.

He also was charged in February with domestic assault, accused of smashing his ex-girlfriend's car window with a tire wrench, the newspaper reported.

The arrest in the current case came after a manhunt unlike any other involving Brooklyn Park police, Chief Michael Davis said Monday. It involved 30 investigators from law enforcement agencies in Minnesota and Missouri and more than 4,000 hours of work.

Police were confident of their target within the first week of the shootings, Davis said, but did not want to jeopardize the investigation by acting prematurely.

Davis said a meeting between police and community members may be held this week, possibly Tuesday night, much like one held two days after the deaths. Brown's neighbors, who expressed confidence in the police last week, breathed sighs of relief Monday.

"I feel better, a lot better and a lot safer," said Elisha Johnson, 20.

Another neighbor, James Thor, 23, said he kept warning himself before Monday, "Wow! Whoever did this, he's still out there." But when he learned of Mosley's arrest, Thor said, "We're in good hands now. It's nice to know how hard the police worked."

Staff writers Paul Walsh and Mary Lynn Smith contributed to this report. Paul Levy • 612-673-4419