St. Paul police have arrested a man in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found Friday morning inside a house in the city’s Frogtown neighborhood, along with an uninjured 2-year-old girl.
The 34-year-old man was booked into the Ramsey County jail Saturday morning on suspicion of second-degree murder, St. Paul police Sgt. Toy Vixayvong said.
Officers responded shortly after 5 a.m. to the house in the 300 block of Edmund Avenue after a caller said that a woman inside may have been injured, and that the girl may be left alone, Vixayvong said at a news conference Friday afternoon.
After no one answered knocks on the door, the officers waited for backup and then entered, he said. They located the unharmed girl, who was removed from the home and taken to safety. Officers then found a woman who was pronounced dead at the scene by firefighter medics.
Vixayvong said homicide investigators were working to determine what happened. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The victim had not yet been identified as of Saturday.
“This is a very tragic event,” Vixayvong said. “It affects not only the family but the whole community.”
The sergeant declined to go into detail when asked about the woman’s injuries, but he said that “based on the trauma of the victim,” police believe that it was a homicide and that the girl was the victim’s daughter.
Crime scene tape blocked off a portion of the 300 block of Edmund Avenue, where officers gathered outside the home Friday.