Minneapolis man charged with first-degree murder in ex-girlfriend’s shooting death

The Minneapolis man accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend outside her North Side home less than three weeks after she filed a protective order against him is now facing first-degree murder charges.

Hennepin County prosecutors on Monday upgraded charges against David Wright, 51, to include first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree murder – past pattern of domestic abuse, in the slaying of 34-year-old Mariah Samuels.

A conviction on either count would carry a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. In Minnesota, a grand jury must be convened to formally indict Wright for those charges to stick.

Her family hailed the development as an important, yet overdue, step toward accountability for Wright, who has a documented history of abuse toward women and minors.

“We’ve had two battles to fight,” Samuels’ aunt, Avonne Winston, said at a rally outside the courthouse Tuesday morning. “We had to fight against domestic violence and then against our own justice system to get them to … react and act in the way that Black and Native American women deserve.”

Wright was initially charged with second-degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm in connection with the Sept. 14 homicide — a case that sparked widespread community outrage and exposed longstanding gaps in the way Minneapolis police investigate domestic violence.

In the aftermath of an investigation by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Police Chief Brian O’Hara ordered a thorough review of the department’s handling of the Samuels case and directed that every officer be retrained on domestic assault protocols by the end of 2025.

“The steps that were taken should have resulted in an arrest,” said Samuels’ sister, Simone Hunter. “It should have resulted in a warrant. It should have resulted in David not coming out of jail for the rest of his life.”

Yet, Samuels, a 34-year-old dog groomer and mother of two, was shot 10 times and killed — hours after calling 911 to report that Wright had violated her no-contact order.

She petitioned a judge for the restraining order against Wright three weeks prior, after a violent episode on the day of their breakup. Later that evening, Samuels alleged in court records, Wright pistol-whipped her, threw her against a fence and grabbed her by the throat.

A surveillance camera captured video of the assault, and a friend witnessed the attack on FaceTime.

But a police investigator was never assigned to the case. It sat amid a growing backlog of similar domestic incidents, known as “gone on arrival” cases, where the assailant flees before police arrive.

“Multiple texts by the defendant in August and September of 2025 show the defendant was controlling of [Samuels] and jealous due to his belief that she was involved with a former partner,” according to the amended criminal complaint.

In one instance, he wrote: “Man someone going to die tonight.”

Wright, who was on federal probation for illegal gun possession at the time of Samuels’ death, has a prior domestic assault conviction from 2003. In that case, Wright pointed a stolen handgun at his then-girlfriend and her 15-year-old after the woman ended their relationship and kicked him out of the house, court records show. When the teen attempted to call 911 during the altercation, Wright ripped the phone from the wall and smashed it on the ground, before threatening to shoot them.

He was sentenced to five years in prison. Wright later served 15 years in federal prison for an unrelated firearms offense. He met Samuels less than a year after his release.

Early on the morning of Sept. 14, Wright allegedly rode up to Samuels’ north Minneapolis home on a bicycle and repeatedly fired at her from close range. Fifteen rounds littered the area. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

“The system failures prior to her death must never be repeated, and every part of the system she interacted with must hold themselves accountable to ensure it,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement Monday announcing the first-degree murder charges. “Mr. Wright will be held accountable, and he will do no more harm to our community.”

It’s not immediately clear why charges are being upgraded now, more than two months after the murder, given that the evidence cited in the amended complaint was not new to law enforcement.

When pressed about the timing, a spokesman for Moriarty’s office said only that it had been conducting an examination of all submitted evidence in the case. When that “review indicated that additional charges were appropriate” and met the standard necessary in court, he said, they amended the complaint.

“It is progress,” Samuels’ older sister, Salina Owens, noted at the rally. But she said that should’ve been the intention of prosecutors from the beginning.

Minneapolis police officials have defended their initial handling of the case, but O’Hara later acknowledged that Samuels’ murder “shined a harsh light on an ugly truth” about low staffing.

“This is not an excuse, but it is the reality,” O’Hara said. “We simply do not have the staffing levels we once did.”