Man charged with crashing carjacked car, killing 2 in Minneapolis hasn’t had a license since 2013

State and federal charges allege a gunman carjacked a sedan Thursday morning on a busy Minneapolis street, sped through various neighborhoods while firing his weapon and fled police until he crashed and killed two women driving in another vehicle.

Troy Mike Payton, 45, of St. Paul, was arrested and taken by emergency medical responders to North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale for treatment of noncritical injuries, the State Patrol said.

Late Thursday, Payton was charged in Hennepin County District Court with three counts of causing great bodily harm while fleeing police. He remains in custody in lieu of $4 million bail ahead of a court hearing Monday afternoon. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

On Monday, the State Department of Public Safety said that Payton’s driving privileges have been revoked since 2013.

The women who died were driver Marisa Ardys Casebolt, 25, and passenger Liberty Borg, 25, both of Minneapolis, according to the patrol. Borg’s 6-year-old son, Greyson, was a passenger in the vehicle and was being treated at HCMC for serious injuries.

“Greyson has undergone surgery to repair the injuries endured during this accident, but still has a long journey ahead of him,” his grandmother, Nichole Page, disclosed in an online fundraising campaign that she started. “Along with his physical pain, he is experiencing emotional pain with the grief of losing his mother.”

Page added that Greyson “is expected to make a full recovery over time. He will have a lot to adjust to.”

A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office pointed out that a carjacking resulting in death “is a death-penalty eligible crime” upon conviction in federal court.

“Two young women should be alive today, read a statement from Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson. ”Instead, their lives were cut short by a senseless crime committed by a career criminal. ... I am weary of this endless violence. Minnesota deserves peace. We will keep fighting to restore it.”

The string of violence began shortly after 8 a.m. on E. Lake Street with the carjacking and ended barely 30 minutes later with the collision at a North Side intersection, police said.

“This is a very devastating incident with very heartbreaking consequences for completely innocent people,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a media briefing at Penn Avenue N. and Olson Hwy., where the collision occurred.

These people, he said, “were just going about their lives. Unfortunately, because of one person’s reckless and violent behavior ... this person clearly endangered hundreds of people’s lives in such a short period of time.”

The County Attorney’s Office said Friday afternoon that additional [state] charges related to the carjacking and use of a firearm are anticipated. The office won third-degree murder convictions this year in two deadly high-profile cases — Derrick John Thompson and Steven Frane Bailey — that led to far longer sentences than for crimes that have typically resulted in charges of criminal vehicular homicide or other lesser counts.

Court records show that Payton’s criminal history in Minnesota includes two convictions each for illegal gun possession and fleeing police, one each for assault, auto theft and tampering with a vehicle, and three for driver either with a suspended license and after his license was revoked. He also has a pending felony drug possession charge from July in Ramsey County.

O’Hara and the charges in both courts gave this account of the string of incidents:

Police were alerted to a man with a gun near E. Lake Street and 4th Avenue S. and were told of a carjacking in progress.

Callers to 911 said they saw a man driving an SUV in a “flagrantly reckless manner, swerving into oncoming traffic, speeding and even driving up on the sidewalks along Lake Street,” O’Hara said.

Police received several reports that the man was randomly firing a gun as he fled in the sedan.

At one point, Payton got out of the car on Lake Street, ran up to a woman, pointed his gun at her, grabbed her hands and demanded to know where the guns were. She said she was unarmed. He released her and drove off.

Payton continued driving recklessly in downtown Minneapolis and was tracked by police to the North Side. About three minutes into the pursuit, Payton ran a red light while heading west on Olson and broadsided a car on Penn “without appearing to slow [down],” the federal charges noted.

Both women in the car died at the scene. Greyson suffered a traumatic brain injury and fractures in both legs. One of the dogs was euthanized after the crash, police said.

Sarah Quast said she was heading home on Lake Street from her job as a hospital nurse when she saw the suspect drive on the sidewalk and crash into a car.

She said she looked in her rearview mirror while driving off and saw the suspect carjack someone else.

“I thought he was going to shoot me because I saw him hit the other car, and I was a witness,” Quast said.