A 19-year-old Kansas City man has been charged with fatally shooting two men while sitting behind them in a car in February in north Minneapolis as part of a suspected drug-related hit job.
Lavell J. Piggie was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court with two counts of second-degree intentional murder in the deaths of Case S. Ritzman, 30, of St. Paul and Malik T. Carr-Riggins, 23, of Minneapolis.
Piggie was jailed in lieu of $2 million bail. Court records did not list an attorney for him.
A court filing noted that investigators suspected a "high-level drug dealer ... set Carr-Riggins up to be killed by [Piggie]." Carr-Riggins was known to authorities as a North Side drug dealer, while Ritzman "was known ... as being a drug user."
According to the complaint and other court records:
Police heard gunfire about 3:45 p.m. Feb. 10 and found a vehicle in a snowbank in the 2000 block of N. Sheridan Avenue. The engine was running, and the rear passenger-side door was open.
Carr-Riggins was behind the wheel and dead from four gunshots to the head. Ritzman was next to him and also dead. He had been shot twice in the head, once in the neck and once in his left forearm. Officers collected eight .40-caliber cartridges from the seat behind Ritzman.
A woman told police she had been with Carr-Riggins and Piggie at a home in north Minneapolis that day. Ritzman drove up, she said, and they all got in the vehicle and headed to the Sheridan Avenue location, where Piggie shot the men in the front seat.
