A Woodbury man was charged Friday with second-degree murder, accused of striking 18-year-old Brittany Clardy in the head with a hammer multiple times during an encounter at a Brooklyn Park home.
Alberto Prece Palmer, wanted in Georgia on charges of assaulting three women he met through online escort services, appeared briefly in Anoka County District Court but did not enter a plea. Judge Sharon Hall set bail at $2 million.
Clardy, of St. Paul, was last seen by her family Feb. 11 when she left home to go to the store in her parents' 2000 silver Chrysler Concorde. She didn't return, and her body was found in the car 10 days later in an impound lot in Columbia Heights. She died "on or about" the day she disappeared, according to the complaint against Palmer.
Palmer, 23, was arrested at his Woodbury home early Wednesday. In statements to authorities over the next two days, the complaint says, he said that he met Clardy on a website, backpage.com, and that the two had sex in a home on the 8400 block of Kentucky Avenue N. in Brooklyn Park. Palmer said the two then began to "tussle" and he choked her until she was unconscious, then struck her multiple times on the back of her head with a hammer, according to the complaint.
He said he put Clardy's body in the back of the car, drove it to an apartment complex and returned to the home to clean up, the document says. It also says a search of the home found blood soaked through carpet and padding in some spots and blood trailing down a hallway, stairway and into the garage.
Authorities said they also found a pair of pants at the home that they believe were Clardy's.
Investigators tracked the defendant initially through cellphone records, determining that the final calls to Clardy's phone came from his cell.
On Thursday, authorities said Clardy had been working as a prostitute, something her family was unaware of, and that they believed Palmer was a client.
