Fohrenkam guilty of murder in killing of Minneapolis student Deshaun Hill
Updated 5:30 p.m.
A jury on Thursday convicted 30-year-old Cody Fohrenkam of second-degree intentional murder in last year’s killing of Deshaun Hill Jr., a 15-year old student and standout athlete at Minneapolis North Community High School.
Jurors deliberated for about an hour before reaching a verdict.
Prosecutors had alleged Fohrenkam fired the fatal shots. The criminal complaint didn’t offer a motive beyond saying Hill and Fohrenkam passed close to one another on a sidewalk near school, possibly close enough to brush shoulders.
In his closing argument Thursday afternoon, Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Dan Allard said that on the morning of the shooting, Fohrenkam had gone to a convenience store at Penn Avenue and Golden Valley Road to buy cigarettes.
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Fohrenkam was at the store when someone — prosecutors didn’t say who — punched him in the face and stole his phone.
As the hours passed that day, Allard said Fohrenkam became angrier and confronted people while looking for his phone.
Allard said after meeting Hill on the sidewalk, Fohrenkam pulled a gun from his backpack and fired it three times, striking Hill once in the back of his head as the teen was walking away wearing an orthopedic boot because of a broken foot.
Witnesses and surveillance video put Fohrenkam at the scene.
“An innocent young man had the terrible misfortune of running across an angry angry man who couldn’t tolerate any more insults, and his response was to shoot him in the head and kill him,” Allard said.
In her closing argument, Hennepin County public defender Lisa Skrzeczkoski focused on the photo lineups that investigators presented to witnesses. Skrzeczkoski said only two of the five people to whom police showed photos identified Fohrenkam as the suspect.
A lineup is supposed to include images of people who look similar to the suspect, but Skrzeczkoski said the other photos in the lineup were of people with darker complexions, which may have led witnesses to identify Fohrenkam.
Hill died Feb. 10 after being shot the previous day. He had played quarterback for the Polars football team. During a celebration of his life at the school following the shooting, friends and family described Hill as a star athlete and stellar student beloved by his peers.
On Thursday, surrounded by Hill’s loved ones following the conviction, family attorney William Walker praised the jury's verdict.
"Every single day, each and every one of these people have … thought about, cried for D-Hill Jr., every single day. They're missing him on the football team right now, they're missing him at the school right now.”