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Jon Collins

Man charged in St. Paul mom's shooting death

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A 24-year-old man was charged Thursday in the shooting death of a St. Paul woman over the weekend.

The Ramsey County Attorney's Office charged Alvin Rudolph Bell, 24, with second-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old Sarah Wierstad.

Wierstad got off the bus near her home at 7:46 p.m. on Sunday. It was only six minutes later that she lay dying on the sidewalk on the 600 block of Bedford Street.

A witness told police that she saw a man shooting at a woman. The witness said she heard "pop, pop, pop" and saw "the fire come out of the gun." The shooter got into a parked vehicle, which quickly drove away, according to the criminal complaint.

The witness told police that she approached Wierstad, asking if she was OK, but Wierstad just gasped for air. By the time officers arrived at the scene, she had stopped breathing.

Wierstad was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office later found that she'd been shot twice. One of the bullets went through her heart.

After the shooting, police investigators discovered that Wierstad's apartment had apparently been burglarized. Investigators also noted a number of items that seemed out of place in the apartment, including empty boxes on Wierstad's daughter's bed and a set of keys on the floor near the apartment's front door. Her purse and cellphone were missing.

Officers found that the screen had been cut out of a window near the apartment's kitchen. Officers traced fingerprints found at the scene to Bell, who had been caught on camera the night of the shooting using Wierstad's credit card at a Minneapolis gas station, according to the complaint.

Police arrested Bell Tuesday in Brooklyn Park, Minn. He told police that someone had given him Wierstad's credit card and that he didn't know it was stolen. His interview with investigators ended after he requested a lawyer.

Bell was convicted for two separate counts of aggravated robbery in Hennepin County in 2009 and 2010. He is being held at the Ramsey County jail. He is scheduled to make his first appearance in Ramsey County District Court Thursday afternoon.