The suspect in a double murder in a southern Minnesota home was captured in Iowa after trying to elude deputies at more than 100 miles per hour and shooting at one of them, officials said Monday.
Justin Paul Reinarts, 50, and Tabitha Leigh Trescott, 32, were killed early Sunday in their home in Hanska, about 30 miles west of Mankato, Fire Chief Mikale Gustafson told the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Randy Thomas Zimmerman, 45, of Courtland, Minn., was arrested in southeastern Iowa at about 4 a.m. Sunday, the Brown County Sheriff’s Office said.
Zimmerman was charged the same day in District Court with second-degree murder and remains held in the Louisa County jail in lieu of $5 million bail pending his return to Minnesota.
While Zimmerman’s apprehension in Iowa was made within 12 hours of the shooting, it came only after he put up stiff resistance, according to a sheriff in that part of the state.
Louisa County Sheriff Brandon Marquardt said his agency was alerted that Zimmerman was in the vicinity. The sheriff said license plate recognition technology detected the suspect’s car close by, but he “would take off at a high rate of speed before any stop was initiated.”
A subsequent law enforcement pursuit topped 100 miles per hour, the sheriff said, and that’s when Zimmerman fired once at one of the deputies but missed.
The second of two “PIT” maneuvers, a tactic law enforcement uses with its squads to disable vehicles, brought Zimmerman’s car to a halt, Marquardt said. Zimmerman fled on foot but was soon “taken into custody by force,” the sheriff said. A shotgun was recovered nearby.
