On a late Sunday afternoon in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the life of 33-year-old Angelica Gonzales was tragically cut short. On September 4, 2022, a masked assailant entered a duplex in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood and opened fire. Gonzales was shot in the face and died at the scene, one of three victims in a brutal attack that also claimed the lives of 44-year-old Maisha Spaulding and 42-year-old Cory Freeman.
Two other individuals were also shot and wounded in the assault.
The investigation into the quintuple shooting led authorities to 41-year-old Antonio Dupree Wright, who was apprehended in Chicago days after the incident. Wright was subsequently charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of attempted second-degree murder. Prosecutors built a case against him, suggesting a motive rooted in paranoia, with a witness alleging that Wright, a purported heroin dealer, believed the victims were "snitching" on him. This witness, who was also a victim in the shooting, initially identified Wright as the masked gunman.
However, the legal proceedings took a dramatic turn. During the trial in September 2023, the key witness recanted their earlier statement, testifying that Wright was not the shooter and that the assailant had a different hairstyle. This testimony, coupled with conflicting accounts from other witnesses and an alibi presented by Wright's defense, created reasonable doubt. Wright's aunt testified that he was with her in Chicago at the time of the shootings, and surveillance footage placed him in that city just hours after the murders occurred. Consequently, a Ramsey County judge found Antonio Dupree Wright not guilty on all charges, leaving the murders of Angelica Gonzales, Maisha Spaulding, and Cory Freeman officially unsolved.
