Man accused of killing Minneapolis high schooler 16 years ago may walk free soon

(KSTP) — A division of the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office is seeking to have a 2009 murder conviction overturned after an investigation of the case found exculpatory evidence that was never presented to the jury.

Edgar Barrientos was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of 18-year-old Jesse Mickelson on Oct. 11, 2008, in his neighbor’s driveway in south Minneapolis. He is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

“The shooting had the hallmarks of a gang-related drive-by shooting, but no one believed that Jesse, who was not a member of a gang, was the target,” Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office said in a statement.

At trial, prosecutors relied heavily on eyewitness testimony identifying Barrientos as the shooter and another witness who claimed to be in the drive-by car at the time of the shooting. Meanwhile, defense attorneys argued unsuccessfully that Barrientos was grocery shopping in St. Paul and couldn’t have driven to the crime scene in time.

The state Conviction Review Unit (CRU) submitted a 182-page report on Wednesday advocating for all charges against Barrientos to be dismissed, arguing that surveillance video and the defendant’s phone records corroborated his alibi and that there was “no physical evidence” connecting him to the crime.

Surveillance footage showed Barrientos at a Cub Foods on the East Side of St. Paul 33 minutes before Mickelson was shot. The phone records — which were never presented to jurors — indicated Barrientos was at his girlfriend’s apartment in Maplewood 27 minutes after the shooting.

“Mr. Barrientos could not have made the journey to and from the crime scene in less than an hour. The jury never heard this evidence that corroborated Mr. Barrientos’s alibi,” the Attorney General’s Office said.

The report also claims eyewitness descriptions of the shooter were incompatible with Barrientos’ appearance. Seven eyewitnesses said in interviews that the gunman was “a Hispanic man with a bald or shaved head.” However, surveillance footage allegedly showed Barrientos with short, dark hair.

The CRU investigation also uncovered issues with the eyewitness identification process and state prosecutors’ key witness, a gang member who could be deemed “unreliable” because of “coercive interviews” leading him to testify that he was in the car with Barrientos and “wildly inconsistent accounts of the shooting and its aftermath.”

The case now heads to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for review.

In a statement, County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, “The allegations revealed by the Attorney General’s investigation and described in the defense pleading are deeply concerning.”

Moriarty says a judge will have the final say over the outcome of the appeal.