$10K reward offered for help in 2020 St. Paul homicide case

Authorities are asking for the public’s help to solve a case of a shooting that killed a man in 2020.

St. Paul police say investigators have exhausted all leads in the homicide case of Jeffery Mintz and need help from the community.

Mintz was driving south on Snelling Avenue West at 9:43 p.m. on Dec. 16, 2020, when someone in a minivan fired a gunshot at him, striking him in the back.

Police say Jeffrey Mintz hit a bus stop shelter, called for help and was rushed to a hospital. However, he died a couple of hours later.

Jeffrey Mintz’s family also teamed up with Crime Stoppers of Minnesota to offer a $10,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest in his death.

“There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about him, where I don’t hear his voice in my head,” said Lee Mintz, the victim’s son. “It’s hard not to feel let down every day.”

Lee Mintz said his father lived only a few blocks away from where he was shot, in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood of St. Paul.

Police do not believe Jeffrey Mintz knew the shooter but may have simply encountered him in a brief traffic incident that night.

“It’s heartbreaking. Jeff is truly an innocent victim who was doing nothing more than driving down the road,” said Sgt. John Keating, with the St. Paul Police Department Homicide Unit. “We believe the suspect ran a red light in an intersection that Jeff happened to be driving through on a green light and there was perhaps a brief encounter. We don’t know exactly what transpired but we don’t believe there was any major altercation of any kind and the other motorist shot Jeff and killed him.”

Police released images of the suspect’s vehicle for the first time Tuesday, in the hopes of gathering new tips in the case.

They describe the vehicle as an early to mid-2000s Chrysler or Dodge minivan.

“We know that the suspect fired one time at Jeff at the intersection of University and Snelling,” Keating said. “We believe the suspect fired from inside his minivan and drove away right after this happened.”

Keating described the shooting as a “chance encounter.”

“Certainly it is a disturbing case. The randomness of this crime has added to the complexity of solving it,” Keating said. “It bothers all of us who have worked on it and we’ll continue to work hard until we figure out who did this.”

Lee Mintz hopes the new reward will help police track down the shooter.

“If anyone knows anything, I really want them to say something, not just as a means of closing this case but to help make sure that whoever feels okay doing these kinds of things to people isn’t allowed to do it again,” the victim’s son said.

Lee Mintz described his father as joyful and creative, someone who lived life to the fullest and always tried to make people smile. He said his dad was a singer in a band, a stand-up comedian and an actor. He was also a longtime lawyer, involved in family law.

“He was always someone who had a very strong sense of justice. He always did what he could to just try to make things right,” Lee Mintz said. “So I want to see accountability for whoever did this.”

Anyone with information is asked to call 651-266-5650.