A Minneapolis woman who admitted being involved in a fatal drive-by shooting 17 years ago was charged Tuesday in connection with a St. Paul homicide last week.
Michelle L. Koester, 42, was charged by warrant in Ramsey County District Court with three counts of aiding an offender after allegedly providing misleading information to authorities about the killing of Sarah A. Wierstad.
Wierstad, 24, was fatally shot after walking in on a burglary of her East Side apartment the night of Oct. 18, authorities say.
Koester, the fourth person charged in the case, was arrested last week on suspicion of murder but was later released.
On Monday, the Ramsey County attorney's office charged Albert G. McIntosh, 30, of Minneapolis, with second-degree murder for allegedly firing the fatal shots. It also has charged Alvin R. Bell, 24, address unknown, with aiding and abetting second-degree murder after an initial charge of second-degree murder was amended, and Isiah L. Harper, 26, of Minneapolis, with aggravated robbery and burglary.
Koester pleaded guilty in 1998 to second-degree murder for her part in a drive-by shooting in Anoka County in which she drove her brother past a house as he fired a shotgun, hitting and killing a man as he slept inside. She was released from prison in 2013, and was on supervised release when arrested last week.
According to the complaint filed Tuesday:
Koester originally told police that she was driving around south Minneapolis with a friend on the night Wierstad was shot. She changed her story several times, however, eventually telling investigators that she, Bell, McIntosh and Harper were at the scene when the shooting took place.
