Investigators with the North Mankato Police Department, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force have put together an excellent case against at least seven defendants thus far for the May 23rd murder of 17-year-old Tyson Goodsell. Goodsell was shot and killed during a phony drug deal designed to rob him of thousands of dollars’ worth of THC cartridges. Three of the four original defendants were wearing court issued ankle monitors at the time of the murder – all for crimes of violence involving other drug related robberies and shootings.
The case is complex, involving traditional police work – scene processing, interviews and interrogations, and search warrants – and a great deal of data collection from phones and surveillance cameras.
Early on in the investigation, the four primary defendants were arrested and charged with varying degrees of murder, robbery, and aiding an offender. Three of those defendants remain in custody – Ahmed Mohamed Mohamud (19), Abdikhadar Mohidin (20), and Ahmed Fuad Mohamud (23). The fourth defendant, Ryan Wolner (18), who is considered the ringleader of the group has bailed out more than once, despite a history of violating terms of conditional release. Wolner remains out of bond at this time.
On Monday evening August 3rd, law enforcement made two additional arrests in the case – Christa Wolner (53) who is Ryan Wolner’s mother and Devon Bakke (18) an associate of the defendants. A third defendant, Jaxon Sageng (18) was arrested Tuesday August 4th. Christa Wolner bailed out of custody on $100,000 bond the same evening, while Bakke bailed out on $75,000 bond August 4th. Sageng remains in custody of the Nicollet County Sheriff as of this writing.
Details in the expansive criminal complaint lay out a disturbing amount of assistance after the fact by Christa Wolner – totaling four counts of aiding an offender. She allowed the defendants access to her real estate office following the murder, gave direction on the use of cell phones to avoid detection, destroyed video surveillance footage showing the defendants in her office building, picked up Wolner and other defendants following the murder and provided cash for at least two defendants to hole up in a hotel room following the murder. She also drove Ryan Wolner past the murder scene two days later so they could take photos and possessed a tote bag in her vehicle that Ryan Wolner was known to store the murder weapon in. Finally, evidence shows she disposed of an auto-sear device at the direction of Ryan Wolner. Such a device turns a semi auto firearm into a fully automatic firearm – they have become widely used by criminal offenders.
Devon Bakke has been charged with six counts of aiding an offender for storing the murder weapon for Wolner before and after the murder and eventually bringing the murder weapon to Christa Wolner’s cabin in an attempt to hide it from law enforcement.
Jaxon Sageng is charged with two counts of aiding an offender to commit murder by setting up the phoney drug deal with Goodsell so the defendants could rob him. Sageng also allowed Ryan Wolner to use his cellphone and car to lure Goodsell to the scene.
The case involves a great deal of disgusting behavior by a large group of young adults and at least one parent. We can be thankful for the excellent follow up by law enforcement to put all the pieces together. We can only hope our court system follows up appropriately to send a clear message that if you engage in this type of behavior you will receive a swift, certain and consequencial prison sentence.
