On a cold March evening in 2014, a young man's life was cut short on a Minneapolis street. Anthony Lee Fairbanks, a 23-year-old male, was discovered lying against a snowbank on the 2700 block of Longfellow Avenue South, having been shot multiple times. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner would later confirm that Fairbanks died from a gunshot wound to the head, and his death was officially ruled a homicide. Just before 10 p.m.
on March 8th, witnesses in the area reported hearing the sound of multiple gunshots.
The events leading up to Fairbanks's death began to unfold as investigators delved into his final hours. He had been at his mother’s home and was overheard on a phone call stating that he would be coming to a meeting alone. Shortly after this call, he was found deceased. A dark-colored van with a distinctive white stripe and cargo top was seen leaving the area where his body was discovered. Phone records became a crucial piece of the puzzle, revealing that the last person Fairbanks spoke with was a woman known as "Black," who had been a source of heroin for him. This individual was identified as 28-year-old Maureen Ndidiamaka Onyelobi.
The motive for the killing appeared to be connected to a federal drug case in which Fairbanks had recently been indicted. A significant co-defendant in that case was Maurice Wilson, Onyelobi's boyfriend. Authorities uncovered that Onyelobi was concerned Fairbanks might cooperate with the police regarding a recent drug arrest she was involved in. This fear seemingly set in motion a fatal plan. Investigators reviewed recorded jailhouse conversations between Onyelobi and her incarcerated boyfriend, during which Wilson allegedly expressed that Fairbanks needed to be "taken care of."
A substantial amount of evidence began to mount against Onyelobi. Surveillance footage from a storage facility in Plymouth showed her visiting her locker on the evening of the murder, retrieving a 9mm handgun. This same weapon was later determined to be the murder weapon after ballistic analysis matched it to the shell casings recovered at the scene of the crime. The day after the shooting, Onyelobi was captured on video returning the gun to the storage unit. Furthermore, the van seen fleeing the scene of the crime matched the description of a vehicle owned by Onyelobi. Three days after the murder, she was arrested on an unrelated drug charge and, while in custody, was observed attempting to hide a key to the storage locker.
Ultimately, Maureen Ndidiamaka Onyelobi was charged with second-degree murder, and a grand jury later indicted her, along with Maurice Wilson and another man named David Johnson, for first-degree premeditated murder. In November 2014, a jury found Onyelobi guilty of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder. She was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
