Charges filed against suspected St. Paul serial robber

A man suspected of a series of street robberies near the State Capitol was charged Friday with multiple felony offenses after allegedly admitting to three holdups and a shooting during a recent weeklong stretch, authorities say.

Marcell D. Estes, 20, told police he only meant to fire warning shots when he hit a man in the right forearm and abdominal area Monday morning outside the Como Place Apartments, 195 Edmund Av., the charges state.

The shooting took place a block from the Rivertown Commons apartment building where Estes was staying, and triggered a public call for help from police who were seeking to solve eight recent robberies in a four-square-block area just northwest of the Capitol.

During the week before Monday's shooting, Estes also has been accused of putting a gun next to a woman's head, before running away empty-handed on Dec. 28, and of stealing $14 from a man whom he threatened with a gun near Como Avenue and Park Street last Saturday.

The woman told police that she feared Estes was going to shoot her, but she believed he must have run because he had heard the woman's husband approaching after the husband had dropped her off outside the Como Place Apartments.

When interviewed by police following his arrest Wednesday, Estes said that he had committed the three robberies because "he had a kid on the way and needed money," according to two criminal complaints filed against him Friday in Ramsey County District Court.

He denied involvement in the other five robberies, which date to Dec. 5.

On Dec. 11, Robert L. Wright, Jr., 21, of St. Paul, was charged with first-degree aggravated robbery after he and another man allegedly pulled guns on two women in the 100 block of Sherburne Avenue on Dec. 8 and robbed them of their money and cell phones.

The robbery was one of two committed in the neighborhood that night by a pair of suspects, and were among the eight cases cited by police when they issued the call for help Monday.

Although Estes has not been charged in connection with the other five cases, the complaints note they were committed in the same area as the other three "with the same described handgun and the same described robber."

Estes made his first court appearance Friday on charges of first-degree aggravated robbery, attempted first-degree aggravated robbery, second-degree assault and possession of a firearm by an ineligible person. He was being held in the Ramsey County jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.