Law enforcement in Iowa suspects that three Twin Cities men were slain after the driver was shot and his two passengers suffered fatal injuries when their car then hit a semitrailer truck head-on, according to newly filed court records in Minnesota.
However, a key mystery prevails: Investigators say they have yet to find evidence that the shot was fired either inside or outside the vehicle.
The shooting and crash occurred in the early morning hours of Oct. 13 along Hwy. 20 near Dubuque, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon.
The DCI identified the men as driver Tijuan Devell White, 50, of Robbinsdale; and passengers Tyrese Devell Johnson, 21, of Minneapolis; and 38-year-old Augustine T. Monboe, also of Robbinsdale. A relative told an investigator that Johnson is White’s son.
White was heading east on Hwy. 20 when he was shot just before the car crossed the median and struck the big rig in the westbound lanes, the Iowa State Patrol said. Flames engulfed both vehicles, and the three men were declared dead at the scene. The trucker was slightly injured.
As of Tuesday’s filing of the affidavit, the document read, the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner “has a pending and preliminary manner of death as murder cause by the gunshot wound and blunt force trauma for White. The office has a pending and preliminary manner of death as murder caused by blunt force trauma for Tyrese Johnson and Augustine Monboe.”
What the DCI, the patrol and a search warrant affidavit filed Tuesday in Hennepin County District Court leave unresolved is the origin of the small-caliber bullet that hit White and remained in his body as he drove on the highway about 30 miles west of Dubuque.
An affidavit that cleared the way for a judge to allow the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to search the assisted-living residence where White and Monboe lived pointed out that “no gunshot holes were noted in the vehicle. No guns, [discharged cartridge] casings or ammunition were recovered from the vehicle.” The filing also determined that the location and angle of White’s gunshot wound to his left side near his armpit was “counterintuitive to suicide.”
