In the early hours of December 17, 2014, a tragic and violent series of events began to unfold at a rest stop in a suburb of Minneapolis. Matthew Paul Maffei, a 23-year-old Caucasian male, was discovered at the Elm Creek Rest Area off Interstate 94 in Maple Grove, Minnesota, having been fatally shot in the head. His death was officially ruled a homicide by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner.
Maffei, who had no permanent address, had ties to Kennewick, Washington.
A witness at the rest stop provided authorities with a description of the vehicle seen leaving the scene, a red SUV with Oregon license plates. This crucial piece of information led police to spot the suspect's vehicle a short time later. The driver was identified as 18-year-old Johnathon Dean Mar of Kennewick, Washington. What followed was a high-speed chase that traversed three counties in the Twin Cities area, with speeds reaching up to 115 miles per hour. The pursuit came to a dramatic end when Mar crashed the SUV into the cable barriers in the median of Interstate 694 in Shoreview.
Following the crash, Mar exited the vehicle and brandished a weapon at the assembled officers from the Brooklyn Center Police Department and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. In the ensuing confrontation, officers opened fire, and Mar was killed at the scene. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner later confirmed that Mar died from multiple gunshot wounds. A subsequent investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension detailed that Mar had emerged from the crashed vehicle with a knife, was repeatedly stabbing himself, and then charged at the officers, ignoring commands to drop the weapon. In November 2015, a Ramsey County grand jury determined that the officers' use of deadly force against Mar was justified, and no charges were filed against them.
Despite the clear sequence of events, a significant question remains unanswered: the motive behind the initial shooting. It is unclear what brought both Matthew Maffei and Johnathon Mar to Minnesota or the nature of their relationship. While both men had ties to the same area in Washington state, the reason for the violent encounter at the Minnesota rest stop remains a mystery. Maffei had a history of criminal offenses, including theft, burglary, and assaults, while Mar had no prior criminal record with the Kennewick police. The investigation into Maffei's homicide was handled by the Maple Grove police, but the underlying cause of this tragic event remains unknown.
