Ryan Charles Rooney was convicted by a Hennepin County jury of first- and second-degree murder for fatally shooting his wife in 2021.

Rooney, 36, is set to be sentenced Dec. 4 and faces life in prison with the possibility of release after 30 years.

He was initially charged with second-degree murder and child endangerment, but the charges were later amended, according to court records.

A criminal complaint states Eden Prairie police went to a hotel room for a welfare check on Nov. 2, 2021, after hotel staff called saying they couldn’t wake a person who was supposed to check out after a 20-day stay. The door was latched shut but hotel staff used tools to open it and found a child in a crib and Rooney in the fetal position on the bed.

When police arrived, Rooney came downstairs from the two-story room “covered in blood” and “clearly in medical distress” from a gunshot wound to the head, court officials said. He was later taken to the hospital, where he told medical personnel that he had shot himself.

The room was “extremely cluttered” and smelled like urine. Another child was found in a crib, which was also “soiled in urine,” according to court documents.

Officers found a woman dead upstairs with a gunshot wound to the chest. She and Rooney had gotten married a few months prior.

In the hotel room, police found multiple bags and a tin of narcotics, a pistol, 9 mm cartridge cases, a magazine and two bullets embedded in the bedroom wall and ceiling. Officers also found multiple cameras, cellphones and a baby monitor in the hotel room and two vehicles in the parking lot registered to the man, all of which were taken into evidence. There was also a tray of meth on the toilet “that would be easily accessible to a small child,” court documents said.

Rooney has three previous domestic assault cases against him, two orders of protection violation cases, and history of narcotics use and terroristic threats, according to court records. Police were called to the hotel less than a month before the murder to investigate Rooney waving a gun outside his car.

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