On the evening of January 8, 2024, the life of a 22-year-old White/Caucasian female, Shellby Marie Trettel, was tragically cut short in a senseless act of violence in Cloquet, Minnesota. Trettel was dutifully working her shift as a front desk representative at the Super 8 hotel, a job she had held since she was a teenager. It was a place familiar to her, but that night it became the scene of a devastating double homicide.
A 911 call was made around 6:30 p.m.
by a fellow Super 8 employee who found Trettel appearing to have been attacked. She had been fatally shot by a gunman. Emergency services transported her to a local hospital, but she was pronounced dead. While investigating the attack on Trettel, law enforcement discovered a second victim in the hotel's parking lot. A 35-year-old hotel guest, Patrick Jeffrey Roers of Deer River, was found deceased in his vehicle with multiple gunshot wounds.
The discovery of the second victim prompted a temporary shelter-in-place order for the city of Cloquet as police searched for what they initially believed to be an active shooter. However, surveillance footage from the hotel soon revealed that the perpetrator was also deceased on the hotel grounds. The suspected shooter was identified as 32-year-old Nicholas Elliot Lenius of Ramsey. He was found with a gun next to him, having died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the wake of the tragedy, no arrests were made as the sole suspect had taken his own life. The motive for the shootings remains unclear, and authorities have stated there is no known connection between Lenius and the victims he targeted. The investigation has suggested that the gunman did not know his victims and was under the influence of meth at the time of the killings. The community was left to mourn the loss of two innocent lives in a violent and random attack.
