July 24, 2026 09:00 AM PST
(PenniesToSave.com) – Three people went to work Monday at a leasing office in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota. By 4:10 that afternoon, all three were dead of multiple gunshot wounds, and the dispute at the center of the case involved a parking contract that cost sixty five dollars a month [3].
Ramsey County prosecutors charged Tsegaab Binessu, 30, a tenant at the complex, with three counts of second degree murder on Tuesday afternoon [3]. Charging documents say he “executed” the three employees after they told him over the phone that he could not cancel a garage contract he had recently renewed [1].
The people who died were Adam Wilwerding, 43, the community manager residents knew as AJ, Dena Silcox, 56, the assistant manager who had worked in that office for nearly a decade, and Nansi Fuentes Zambrano, 25 [2][3].
One detail in the complaint makes the arithmetic of this case almost impossible to hold in your head. He had already sold the car [4]. The contract he could not cancel was for a parking space he no longer had anything to put in.
Quick Links
- What Happened Inside the Leasing Office?
- How Was the Suspect Found and Charged?
- What Did the Suspect Tell Investigators?
- Who Were the Three People Who Died?
- What Does This Mean for the Average American?
What Happened Inside the Leasing Office?
The call came first. According to the criminal complaint, Binessu telephoned the leasing office at his apartment complex to cancel his sixty five dollar monthly parking garage contract. Staff told him he could not get out of paying for an agreement he had recently renewed. He answered that he would come to the office and discuss the matter in person [1][3][4].
Several residents called 911 a short time later, reporting screams and gunshots at the complex near the intersection of St. Paul Avenue and West Seventh Street. Officers arrived and found three people dead of multiple gunshot wounds at around 4:10 p.m. on Monday, July 20 [3].
Surveillance video recovered from the office captured most of what followed, prosecutors say. Wilwerding and Silcox were speaking with Binessu when he lifted his shirt, pulled a handgun from his waistband and chambered a round [1][3]. Wilwerding raised his hands. Binessu allegedly fired six shots at him, then turned and fired six at Silcox, covering his own ears as he pulled the trigger [3][4].
What the camera did not capture matters as much as what it did. Binessu allegedly walked down a hallway and out of the camera’s view. The complaint records a woman’s screams, then four more gunshots [3][4]. Fuentes Zambrano was found at the back of the office, and investigators believe she was shot while attempting to escape through a window [2][4].
Police recovered twenty one spent nine millimeter casings inside the office [1][2][3]. Twenty one rounds fired in a leasing office over a monthly bill that would not cover a tank of gas.
How Was the Suspect Found and Charged?
The case moved quickly, and it moved because someone picked up a phone. A man who said he had been Binessu’s roommate since 2018 called police after the shooting. He told investigators that Binessu had contacted him and said he “argued with apartment management and ended up killing three people,” and that he was walking to a police station [1].
The roommate filled in the background. Binessu had quit his job as a truck driver roughly two months earlier and planned to enlist in the United States Navy. To do that he intended to sell his car in Maplewood and cancel the parking garage contract at the apartment [3][4].
Binessu did not walk into a police station. Deputies arrested him Monday night in Virginia, Minnesota, on the Iron Range, roughly two hundred miles north of the crime scene [2][3]. He was driving Fuentes Zambrano’s car at the time [2][3][4]. Officers found him carrying a United States passport, a Social Security card, an empty magazine and his permit to carry a firearm [1].
One distinction deserves care, because coverage of this case has blurred it. Binessu did not confess to police. In his interview with investigators he acknowledged going to the leasing office and having a dispute, then asked for an attorney before saying anything about what happened inside [3][4]. The confession described in the record was the one he allegedly made to his roommate, not to law enforcement.
Prosecutors filed three counts of second degree murder on Tuesday afternoon. Each count carries up to forty years in prison. He was held on ten million dollars bond ahead of a first court appearance Wednesday, and it was not clear whether he had entered a plea or retained counsel [2][3][4].
What Did the Suspect Tell Investigators?
The complaint contains a lengthy account of what Binessu said after his arrest, and it is worth reporting accurately rather than reducing to a headline.
He complained to investigators about what he called the American system. He said he had spent seven years unsuccessfully trying to bring his wife and children to the United States from Ethiopia, and blamed that process for the end of his marriage [1][2][3]. He said apartment management had repeatedly blamed problems on the system as well, and that he believed he had been treated unfairly because of his race and his immigration history [3][4]. He told police he had lost everything he cared about, listing his family, his business and his peace of mind, and the complaint quotes him saying that “life without his family no longer made sense” [4].
Those are the words of a man in genuine distress, and a court will weigh them at sentencing if there is a conviction. They are not an explanation for what happened in that office.
Three people who had no part in any immigration process, no authority over federal policy and no role in the collapse of anyone’s marriage were killed at their workplace. Wilwerding and Silcox were enforcing a contract term written above their pay grade. Fuentes Zambrano appears to have been trying to get out a window. Every adult carries frustrations, and most carry heavier ones than a parking bill. What separates a bad day from a triple homicide is a choice, and the law holds people answerable for the choices they make with their grievances.
Several things remain unknown and should be treated that way. None of the available reporting establishes Binessu’s legal status beyond his country of origin. No mental health evaluation has been made public. His defense has not responded, and he is presumed innocent until a court says otherwise.
Who Were the Three People Who Died?
The three people in that office were not strangers to the property. They were the faces residents saw when a lease came up, when the heat failed, when the rent was late.
Adam Wilwerding, 43, was the community manager. Residents called him AJ. A former tenant who had dealt with him as a property manager described him as a kind and caring person to everyone in the building [4]. Neighbors said he was the kind of manager people stayed put for.
Dena Silcox, 56, was the assistant manager and had worked in that office for close to ten years [2]. A fundraiser for her family remembered a vibrant spirit who brought joy to the people who knew her, and noted that her children were facing the loss with bravery [4]. At a vigil held Tuesday, her father described her as a fabulous piano player and her younger brother said she had “a fire in her belly” [2].
Nansi Fuentes Zambrano, 25, was remembered in a fundraiser as a beloved daughter, sister, aunt and girlfriend who gave her love and care beyond measure [4]. While officers were still working the scene, her boyfriend approached them and said he believed she was one of the victims, and that her car was missing from the lot [1].
Residents built a makeshift memorial outside the leasing office. One tenant of seven years said she knew all three. A former employee stopped by simply out of respect. Several neighbors said they were now thinking about moving [3]. Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said his office would work to “hold the accused accountable and seek justice for our community and victims” [3].
What Does This Mean for the Average American?
Most of us will never see anything like this. But the shape of it is familiar to almost everyone who has ever worked a job where the public walks in the door.
Front line workers absorb consequences they did not create. A leasing agent does not write the contract terms. A clerk does not set the return policy. A service representative does not decide what the fee is. They deliver the answer, and they take the reaction. That gap between who makes a rule and who has to say it out loud is where an ordinary workday can turn dangerous, and it is invisible right up until the moment it is not.
There is a fair question here about what a leasing office is equipped to handle when a routine conversation goes wrong. Nothing in the public record suggests this complex failed at anything, and it would be unfair to imply otherwise this early. But employers and residents reading about twenty one shell casings in a leasing office will reasonably start asking what their own workplace looks like from the other side of the counter.
The encouraging part of this record is the accountability. A roommate called police rather than staying quiet. Officers found the suspect two hundred miles away within a day. Prosecutors charged the case in under twenty four hours, built on surveillance video, physical evidence and a documented timeline. That is the system doing exactly what taxpayers fund it to do, and whether it holds through prosecution is the part worth following.
The last thing worth sitting with is proportion. A sixty five dollar monthly charge is the kind of annoyance nearly every adult has argued about with a landlord, a bank or a phone company. Nearly every one of us walks away from it.
Final Thoughts
Tsegaab Binessu is charged, not convicted, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence and to the defense he has asked for. The case now moves to a Ramsey County courtroom, where the surveillance footage, the twenty one casings and the account he gave investigators will be tested under rules built for exactly that purpose.
What is already settled is the cost. Three people who went to work on a Monday did not come home. A community manager known to half the building by his first name, an assistant manager with almost a decade in that office and children who now face life without her, and a 25 year old whose family remembered her boundless generosity toward everyone around her.
The contract at the center of this case was for a parking space attached to a car that had already been sold. Whatever a jury eventually decides about the man who walked into that office, nothing about the ledger will ever balance. Sixty five dollars a month on one side, three lives on the other, and a neighborhood outside the door still asking why.
Works Cited
[1] Frevele, Jamie. “Man ‘Executed’ 3 People after They Told Him He Had to Pay a Parking Garage Bill He Just Renewed: Police.” Law&Crime, 22 July 2026, lawandcrime.com/crime/man-executed-3-people-after-they-told-him-he-had-to-pay-a-parking-garage-bill-he-just-renewed-police/.
[2] Bradford, Chris. “Crazed Migrant Allegedly Executes 3 Minnesota Apartment Complex Staffers over Parking Contract Dispute.” New York Post, 22 July 2026, nypost.com/2026/07/22/us-news/minnesota-migrant-tsegaab-binessu-allegedly-executes-3-apartment-complex-staffers-over-parking-contract-dispute/.
[3] Brown, Kyle, and Pilar Pedraza. “Charges: Man Killed 3 at St. Paul Apartment after Dispute about Garage Rental.” KSTP, 21 July 2026, kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/charges-man-killed-three-people-at-saint-paul-apartment-over-garage-rental-contract/.
[4] Brachfeld, Ben. “Man Allegedly ‘Executed’ 3 Apartment Complex Workers over $65 Monthly Parking Fee Dispute: Complaint.” People, 22 July 2026, people.com/man-accused-of-triple-murder-over-apartment-parking-fee-dispute-criminal-complaint-12024800.