Twenty-one nine-millimeter shell casings. That's what St. Paul police found on the floor of the leasing office at Davern Park Apartments on July 20. Three employees were dead. The alleged shooter — a 30-year-old tenant named Tsegaab Ademassu Binessu — had already stolen one of his victims' cars and fled 200 miles north to St. Louis County, Minnesota, where officers found him with newly purchased camping gear and an empty handgun magazine.
The dispute that started it all? A $65 monthly parking garage contract he wanted canceled.
According to court documents reported by the NY Post and Fox 9, Binessu — an Ethiopian migrant — had recently sold his car at a CarMax in Maplewood. He wanted out of his parking contract. The leasing office told him the contract couldn't be changed. A woman at the office "repeatedly told him it was the 'system' and could not be changed," per the criminal complaint.
So he came back with a nine-millimeter gun.
Surveillance video captured what happened next. Binessu walked into the leasing office and, according to police, "executed the people in the leasing office." He fired three shots at Adam J. Wilwerding, 43, of Oakdale, then three more. He fired five rapid-succession shots at Dena M. Silcox, 56, of St. Paul, then one more. Nansi G. Fuentes Zambrano, 25, of Inver Grove Heights, was trying to escape through an office window when she was shot.
On the surveillance footage, Binessu could be heard saying "motherf---ing b---h" as he stalked around the office.
Three people. Twenty-five, forty-three, and fifty-six years old. Dead because a parking contract couldn't be canceled.
Binessu had quit his trucking job two months earlier and told his roommate — someone he'd lived with since 2018 — that he planned to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He had a U.S. passport and a permit to carry a firearm. After the shooting, he told his roommate he had "argued with apartment management and ended up killing three people" and that "life without his family no longer made sense."
He complained about the American system. He cited what he called unfair treatment due to his race and immigrant status. He blamed a prolonged immigration process for his divorce and separation from his family. Binessu had left his wife and seven children back in Ethiopia to persue a life in America. He blamed everything and everyone except the man in the mirror holding the gun.
Binessu now faces three counts of second-degree murder with intent and is being held at Ramsey County Jail. Each count carries up to 40 years in prison.
The leasing office employees at Davern Park Apartments didn't set immigration policy. They didn't design the "system." They processed parking contracts and managed tenant complaints. Nansi Fuentes Zambrano was 25 years old — she was barely into her career.
A $65 parking contract. Twenty-one shell casings. Three families that will never be the same. And a man who decided his frustrations with the system entitled him to an execution.