St. Olaf football player ‘innocent victim’ during shootout in crowded bedroom, murder charges say

A St. Olaf College football player was an “innocent victim” of murder after a shootout between two men in a crowded South St. Paul bedroom, according to charges filed Tuesday.

Terrell Anthony Ranzy, 19, of St. Paul, was charged in Dakota County District Court with second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and illegal gun possession in connection with the shooting that occurred about 3:45 a.m. Friday inside a South St. Paul home that left 20-year-old Matthew Lee dead and another man wounded.

Ranzy remains jailed in lieu of $400,000 bail ahead of a court appearance on Sept. 25. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

Lee, an economics major from South St. Paul, was back for his third season with the team after playing the previous two at linebacker.

Head Coach James Kilian said Wednesday that a moment of silence in Lee’s memory will be observed at the team’s home game Saturday afternoon against Concordia College of Moorhead, its first game since his death.

Players will have stickers with Lee’s No. 42 affixed to their helmets starting Saturday and for the rest of the season, Kilian said.

According to the criminal complaint:

The officers went to the bedroom, where Lee’s body kept them from opening the door more than a few inches. The pushed the door open and found that Lee had been shot and was lacking a pulse. Another man, Keith Woodson Cox, 20, of South St. Paul, also had been shot. A handgun was on a table in the room.

Some among the several people in the home at the time of the shooting spoke with police. One of them “described [Lee] as an innocent bystander,” the complaint noted.

Witnesses said Ranzy, Woodson Cox and Lee were with three more people in a small bedroom, which had a bed, a desk, a dresser and other items.

Woodson Cox and Ranzy each had handguns and were comparing them. Woodson Cox said Ranzy should also keep a round in the chamber. Woodson Cox then aimed at Ranzy and ordered him to give up his gun.

Ranzy fell backward and fired into the ceiling, then shot multiple times while crouched, wounding Lee and Woodson Cox.

Ranzy ran out of the home, tried in vain to get back in to retrieve his cellphone and was eventually captured by police in a shed nearby.

Ranzy was convicted in Ramsey County last year of threats of violence, meaning that he cannot legally possess a gun.