24 die in domestic violence, 2017 Femicide report says

Domestic violence killed at least 24 people in 2017, the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women reported Tuesday.

The annual Femicide report said that number may grow: Four additional deaths last year are pending "further information on [the] circumstances … and the relationship between the victims and the perpetrators."

The report comes a day after a 26-year-old Anoka man was sentenced for fatally stabbing his on- and off-again girlfriend in defiance of a no-contact order.

Lucas A. Jablonski was given a 36½-year term Monday in Anoka County District Court in connection with the death in August 2016 of 34-year-old Rebecca L. Drewlo, of Coon Rapids, whose parents had been her guardians since she turned 18.

Jablonski has been jailed since he was charged in September 2016 with violating a restraining order granted at the request of Drewlo's mother in September 2014. Earlier violations by Jablonski of the same restraining order — in 2014 and 2016 — led to convictions but no significant time in custody. He was convicted of second-degree murder in November.

In the petition for the restraining order, Laura Drewlo, Rebecca's mother, noted that Jablonski had "taken advantage of Becky sexual[ly] many times. Becky lacks sufficient understanding [and] therefore doesn't understand the consequences."

A caller to 911 reported seeing Jablonski on the sidewalk outside the apartment complex in the 9200 block of University Avenue NW. with head, neck and facial injuries, according to the charges.

On Aug. 18, 2016, police came to the apartment building, where they found a badly wounded Jablonski on the sidewalk and a knife under him. A trail of blood led to Drewlo's apartment. Her body was on the floor of a bedroom closet.

With credit for time spent in jail since his arrest, Jablonski will serve the first 23½ years in prison and the balance on supervised release.

According to the Femicide Report, the preliminary total of homicides for 2017 is slightly below the annual average of 27 over the current decade, which saw a high of 34 in 2011 and 2015, and a low of 18 in 2012.

The coalition's annual tally noted that 19 of the victims last year were killed by a current or former intimate partner.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482