Former Marine rifleman charged in deadly Lowertown shooting

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) - The Ramsey County Attorney charged Scott Klund with second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder for a shooting in a Lowertown apartment building over the weekend. The incident left a grandmother of nine dead, and a man hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

Klund served four years as a rifleman in the Marines, and served tours of duty in Afghanistan, Thailand and the Philllipines.

"I woke up with what sounded like an explosion, there were so many shots and so loud," said Parkside Apartments resident Julie Ann Bailey.

Fifteen minutes after Bailey called 9-1-1 to report the gunshots in her building, investigators say her downstairs neighbor Klund called police to say he'd shot a man in his apartment.

When officers arrived, they smelled fresh gun powder, and Klund was lying on the floor. Officers asked him if he was injured, but he laughed and replied "I'm not the one who got shot."

Inside the apartment, officers found Charlotte Rawls, who had been shot in the chest, dead on the floor. They also found her male companion with several minor gunshot wounds behind a bullet riddled bathroom door.

In all, police found 30 spent shell casings along with a black assault rifle. Some of the rounds hit the building across the street, while others went through the wall into the bathroom next door.

"Apparently more rounds were fired than I heard because I heard three or four. There were more than that," said Bailey.

As an officer put Klund in a squad car, Klund smiled and winked at him, prosecutors said.

Klund later told police he'd gone to The Bulldog in Lowertown until closing time and then a nearby SuperAmerica, where he gave money to the man and Rawls to be a Good Samaritan, and invited them back to his apartment to have some cocktails.

Klund claims he opened fire on the man because he was trying to steal his laptop, but the man denies that and says he doesn't know why Klund shot him.

He is in the Ramsey County jail on $1 million bail. He'll be back in court next Tuesday.