John William Westly Stroud, a 22-year-old man, was killed on April 22, 2026, outside the 66 West apartment complex in Edina, Minnesota, near York Avenue South and West 66th Street, just north of Southdale Center. Although one online memorial lists Minneapolis as the location associated with his death, police, prosecutors and court-related reporting consistently place the fatal encounter at 66 West, where Stroud was living. Edina officers were dispatched at approximately 12:24 to 12:30 p.m.
and found Stroud on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds to his chest. Officers and other first responders attempted lifesaving measures, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy later determined that Stroud had been shot five times in the chest. The sudden gunfire in the busy Southdale area triggered an extensive emergency response, with Southdale Center, M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital and other nearby businesses and medical facilities temporarily locking down while authorities searched for people who had fled the shooting scene.
Investigators quickly turned to surveillance cameras around the apartment complex to reconstruct what had happened. According to the criminal complaint, the footage showed Stroud interacting with Elevoun Quinnell Wren, another resident of 66 West who was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt. Three other people eventually joined Wren. The encounter escalated into a physical struggle between Stroud and Wren, and at one point Stroud was seen putting his arms around Wren's neck. The two moved behind a pole and briefly disappeared from the camera's view. Moments later, Stroud fell to the ground on the other side of the pole. Prosecutors allege the video then showed Wren standing over Stroud with his right arm extended toward him and an object in his hand. Wren and the three others immediately ran out of the camera's view. The complaint did not identify a specific motive for the confrontation or explain what caused the dispute to turn deadly.
The search for those involved continued for hours after the shooting. Three people were arrested later that Wednesday on suspicion of involvement in the killing, while authorities continued investigating the scene and reviewing surveillance evidence. A fourth arrest followed on Thursday, April 23, when Wren was taken into custody. Additional surveillance allegedly showed Wren returning to his apartment after the shooting and later leaving while wearing a different, red-and-black sweatshirt. Police obtained a search warrant for his apartment and reported finding a pistol underneath a gray hooded sweatshirt in a closet, along with three ammunition magazines and a magazine extender. Those discoveries, combined with the surveillance footage, became central pieces of the evidence described by prosecutors when they moved forward with a case against Wren.
The arrests ultimately did not result in charges against everyone initially detained. After Edina police and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office reviewed the available evidence, prosecutors announced that the three people first arrested would be released because there was not sufficient evidence at that time to support criminal charges against them. Wren, however, was formally charged in Hennepin County District Court on April 24 with one count of second-degree intentional murder in Stroud's death. The prosecution was filed as case 27-CR-26-10456. At the time the charge was announced, Wren was being held in custody, and early court reporting said bail had been set at $1 million. Authorities stressed that the decision to release the other three people did not mean the investigation had ended; prosecutors described the case as complex and ongoing. Wren therefore became the only person formally accused in court of carrying out the fatal shooting, while the others initially taken into custody were released without charges.
Stroud's death left his family trying to understand how a confrontation involving people they believed he knew could have ended with him being shot outside his own residence. His mother, Julie Stroud, said the people originally taken into custody were supposed to have been his friends. She described John as bright, generous and deeply connected to his family. According to her account, he had moved to Minnesota several years earlier and had pursued both skilled trades and further education, earning an electrician certification while studying toward a career as an aircraft mechanic. Music was one of his strongest interests, along with boxing and mathematics, and his mother recalled having talked with him about music during their final conversation roughly a week before his death. Family members later gathered outside 66 West for a candlelight vigil, returning to the place where the shooting occurred as they mourned him and called for accountability.
The criminal case presented by prosecutors centers on the allegation that what began as a physical confrontation between Stroud and Wren escalated into an intentional fatal shooting, with surveillance footage and evidence recovered from Wren's residence forming important parts of the state's case. The publicly available sources located for this synopsis do not report a completed trial, guilty plea, conviction or sentence. The latest clearly documented prosecution status remains that Wren was charged with second-degree intentional murder and was the sole person facing a murder charge, while the other people initially arrested were released for lack of evidence sufficient to charge them.
