Conviction reversed for man charged for role in murder during ambush robbery in St. Paul alley

An Appeals Court on Monday reversed a jury’s conviction of a man charged with participating in the murder during an ambush robbery of a St. Paul man who was steps away from arriving home after a day’s work.

The three-judge Court of Appeals panel decided there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s guilty verdict against Detwan Cortell Allen, 21, of aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder in connection with the shooting of Alex Becker, 22, on Dec. 27, 2022, in an alley in the 500 block of W. Lawson Avenue.

The shooter, 22-year-old Arteze Owen Kinerd, is serving a 30-year sentence handed down in June. A third defendant was acquitted by a jury in December 2023.

The reversal does not send the case back to Ramsey County District Court for retrial, but prosecutors have the option to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court.

“We are disappointed in the outcome and are reviewing the appellate court’s decision in this case,” said Dennis Gerhardstein, spokesman for the County Attorney’s Office. “We have 30 days to consider whether a petition for review to the Minnesota Supreme Court is warranted in this matter.”

If the conviction had been upheld Monday, Allen, of Minneapolis, would have been imprisoned until June 2043 followed by 10 years of supervised release.

Despite Monday’s victory, Allen remains locked up for his sentence in October to a 6¾-year term for an armed robbery he committed with Kinerd in St. Paul 2½ weeks before Becker’s death.

Working against Allen, the appeals ruling acknowledged, was his DNA being found on the steering wheel of the stolen car used by the defendants on the night of the killing and evidence raised during the trial about the armed robbery Allen and Kinerd perpetrated earlier that month, with Allen holding the gun.

Also, the ruling continued, “Allen’s close association with Kinerd, presence at the crime scene, and departure from the scene with Kinerd and [the acquitted defendant] is consistent with the inference that Allen intentionally aided that offense.”

Even so, the appellate judges pointed out, Allen “contends the circumstances ... fail to also exclude all reasonable inferences other than guilt. ... He contends they support a reasonable inference that he did not intentionally aid in [Becker’s] murder because he was not present at the time Kinerd murdered [Becker]. We agree.”

In building their cases, prosecutors connected police interviews, surveillance video, cellphone data and witness testimony to show how the three men targeted Becker as he walked home alone that night from work at Goodin Co., a wholesale distributor for plumbing parts and piping systems where he worked with his father.

The three drove past Becker before circling back to park near him. The video shows the three waiting near a corner before rushing into an alley Becker entered moments before. Within minutes, gunshots rang through the alley. Seconds afterward, Allen was seen returning to the car alone and driving away with the headlights off before he returned and picked up the other two, who were recorded leaving the scene in the car driven by Allen.