Boyfriend calls Minneapolis police to confess 'perfect crime' in killing

Calling from Texas five days ago, John M. King told Minneapolis police he had committed the perfect murder.

In October, he and his new girlfriend, 51-year-old Pam Sjogren, got in a fight because she wouldn't deal with some personal issues. He claimed she poked him in the eye, which angered him to the point that he put her in a "full nelson" sleeper hold for 40 seconds until she passed out. King told police he believed he broke her neck.

Because Sjogren had threatened suicide in the past, King left her body hanging from a rope in her garage, a wooden stepladder kicked out from her feet, according to charges detailing the crime. The Hennepin County medical examiner ruled it a suicide.

Police speculate a guilty conscience may be the reason King decided to confess. In a statement to police, he said he didn't want Sjogren's children to think she had killed herself.

On Monday, King, 50, who is described as a drifter, turned himself into the Texas Rangers in Dallas. He is now charged with second-degree murder and is awaiting extradition to Minnesota.

"It's an unusual case to have somebody come in three months later and confess to the crime, but he felt guilty and wanted to do the right thing," said Lt. Richard Zimmerman, head of the Minneapolis homicide unit.

Even though charges have been filed, Zimmerman said police and the medical examiner will continue their investigations. Investigators have evidence to corroborate King's story, he said.

Christian Hallanger, who said he had lived across the street from Sjogren's duplex for 10 years, said neighbors "were always surprised that she killed herself because she was a strong and assertive woman."

Sjogren's daughter and grandchildren lived in the downstairs portion of the duplex and the children played with his kids, Hallanger said Wednesday. He described Sjogren as a "very nice, very sharp woman." He said she often worked in her yard and that they had watched several of the presidential debates this fall together.

The charges against King give these details about the killing: Silver, Sjogren's son, reported her apparent suicide to police Oct. 25, when he found her hanging in the garage of the duplex in the 3500 block of 19th Avenue S. Officers believed she had been dead for several days, and the last time relatives had contact with her was Oct. 21. Her children said she a new boyfriend, but they didn't know his name. They told police the couple argued regularly.

An obituary notice in the Star Tribune said there was a memorial service for Sjogren in Bad Manor at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and that she was survived by a son, two daughters and two granddaughters.

On Saturday, an officer at the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct received a call from an anonymous man in Texas who confessed to a murder and wanted to turn himself in, the charges said. He eventually identified himself as John King and told the officer he had killed Pam Sjogren.

Later that day, a homicide detective called King's Texas number that appeared on caller ID at the precinct. King repeated the details of Sjogren's death and said he would give himself up Monday at the Dallas field office of the Texas Rangers.

When King showed up, he was met by two Minneapolis detectives. He gave a statement detailing the death and his decision to stage it as a suicide after he found a rope in the garage that already had a slipknot.

He even described exactly what she was wearing the day she died: a white long-sleeve knit sweater, blue jeans, brown shoes and a ring.

King even told police about a book of Sjogren's he left behind in the garage. It was titled, "Pop-Up Book of Phobias."