A 30-year-old Ethiopian migrant faces three counts of second-degree murder after allegedly gunning down three property managers at his St. Paul, Minnesota, apartment complex in a dispute over a $65 monthly parking contract.
Tsegaab Ademassu Binessu walked into the leasing office on Monday after being told he could not cancel a parking garage agreement he had recently renewed, Fox News Digital reported. Court documents describe what happened next in graphic detail: surveillance footage captured Binessu pulling a handgun from his waistband, pointing it at property manager Adam J. Wilwerding, 43, and firing three times. He fired three more rounds as Wilwerding collapsed to the floor.
Dena M. Silcox, 56, screamed and covered her ears. Binessu allegedly shot her five times in rapid succession. As she wheeled her chair away from the desk, he fired a sixth round. Police later found 21 nine-millimeter shell casings scattered across the leasing office.
Binessu then moved into a hallway, where a woman's screams were heard followed by four more gunshots. The third victim, Nansi G. Fuentes Zambrano, 25, was killed. Three property managers, people whose job was to keep the building running, were dead over a parking fee most Americans would barely notice on a monthly statement.
Court documents paint a chilling sequence. Before the first shot, surveillance cameras recorded Binessu talking with Silcox and Wilwerding in the office. The conversation appeared to concern his parking contract. Binessu had called apartment staffers earlier that day to cancel the $65 agreement. When he was told the contract had been recently renewed and could not be canceled, he said he would come to the management office in person.
Silcox's final recorded words, captured on the footage, were brief and desperate. Court filings describe her saying:
"No, no, no, no, no."
After shooting Silcox, Binessu stalked around the office. Court documents record him saying "motherf****** b****" before moving toward the hallway where the final gunshots were heard.
Shortly after the shooting, Binessu's roommate, who has lived with him since 2018, called police. The roommate told authorities that Binessu had phoned him and said he "argued with apartment management and ended up killing three people." The roommate reported that Binessu claimed to be walking to the police station.
He never arrived. Officers arrested Binessu while he was driving Fuentes Zambrano's car. Inside the vehicle, authorities found what appeared to be newly purchased camping gear, along with Binessu's U.S. passport, Social Security card, an empty handgun magazine, and his gun permit.
The camping gear and the stolen car tell a different story than a man heading to turn himself in. Binessu remains in police custody.
In an interview with investigators after his arrest, Binessu shifted the frame. Court documents state that he "believes he was treated unfairly because he is Black and an immigrant." He voiced frustration with what he called a "prolonged immigration process" that had kept him from bringing his wife and children to the United States for seven years. That separation, he told investigators, contributed to his divorce.
Court filings capture his broader grievance in his own words:
"Binessu repeatedly said he has lost everything he cared about: his wife, his children, his business, his peace of mind. Binessu said life without his family no longer made sense."
The roommate added further background. Binessu had quit his trucking job roughly two months before the shooting. He had once aspired to join the U.S. Navy. On the day of the attack, he sold his car, a detail that, combined with the camping gear found in the stolen vehicle, suggests planning rather than a momentary loss of control.
Minnesota has become a recurring flashpoint for questions about how state leadership handles immigration and public safety. Governor Tim Walz's pardon board has drawn national scrutiny for pardoning an illegal immigrant convicted of armed robbery ahead of ICE deportation, one of several clemency decisions that critics say prioritize leniency over the safety of lawful residents.
Fuentes Zambrano was 25. Silcox was 56. Wilwerding was 43. They managed an apartment building. They handled leases, maintenance requests, and, on that Monday, a tenant angry about a parking contract worth less than a weekly grocery bill.
None of them set policy on immigration. None of them controlled the pace of Binessu's family reunification case. They enforced a lease term. For that, court documents allege, they were executed in their own office with 21 rounds of ammunition.
Binessu's claim that he was treated unfairly because of his race and immigration status deserves the scrutiny that any self-serving statement from an accused triple murderer deserves, which is to say, not much. The surveillance footage does not show a man enduring discrimination. It shows a man pulling a gun on unarmed office workers.
The case also raises questions that the court documents do not answer. Binessu possessed a U.S. passport and Social Security card, yet the reporting describes him as an "African migrant" from Ethiopia who spent years unable to bring his family to the country. His precise immigration status remains unclear. Whether he was a naturalized citizen, a permanent resident, or held some other status is a gap the charging documents apparently do not fill.
That ambiguity matters. If Binessu held lawful status and a gun permit, as the items found in the car suggest, then the system processed his paperwork and issued him credentials. The question is whether anyone along the way flagged a man who had recently quit his job, sold his car, and was spiraling toward a grievance he could not contain.
Walz's Minnesota has faced broader accountability questions beyond individual clemency decisions. His pardon board cleared a convicted child sex offender facing deportation, a decision that prompted federal intervention when ICE removed the offender after his legal status was revoked. A separate House oversight report accused the Walz administration of ignoring fraud warnings as billions in taxpayer funds disappeared. The pattern is consistent: a state government that struggles to hold the line on enforcement while the people who live with the consequences pay the price.
Violent crime committed by migrants, whether legal or illegal, has become one of the sharpest fault lines in American politics. Cases like the Bronx shooting by Tren de Aragua gang members that killed two unarmed Americans keep forcing the same question: are the systems meant to screen, track, and hold accountable the people this country admits actually working?
Three property managers in St. Paul could not cancel a parking contract for a tenant who did not want to pay $65 a month. They followed the rules. He allegedly picked up a gun. The system that was supposed to stand between those two outcomes was nowhere in sight.
