3rd person charged in St. Paul homicide investigation

Krystal Frasier KSTP

Kendall Dvontae Pruitt (Ramsey County Jail)

Court documents show a third person has been formally charged in connection with a fatal shooting in St. Paul last month.

According to a criminal complaint, 25-year-old Kendall Pruitt has been charged with one count of second-degree intentional murder.

Pruitt, as well as 23-year-old Montez Dalray Davis and 27-year-old Delaquay Levius Williams, are charged in the death of 26-year-old Casanova Carter.

St. Paul police said officers were called to the area of Winslow Avenue and Page Street at about 10:15 p.m. on Feb. 1. There, they found Carter suffering from multiple gunshot wounds inside a home. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to a criminal complaint, 18 spent casings were found outside the home from four different guns, with one matching 9 mm Luger. Officials say the 9 mm Luger was also linked to a shooting shortly before 6:30 p.m. at a corner store on Fourth Street East in St. Paul. When police looked at surveillance videos, they traced the suspects to a Nissan Altima that was registered to Davis’s girlfriend.

The complaint goes on to say officers also tracked the Nissan to a Holiday gas station earlier in the evening, where two of the men got out of the vehicle and were seen on camera. Police identified those men as Pruitt and Davis, adding that Pruitt was sitting in the seat where a gun fired at the corner market. DNA swabs from the exterior of the house Carter was in were sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and a partial major male profile matched Williams.

On Feb. 12, Davis and his sister also got into an argument at a gas station in Minneapolis where Davis allegedly shot at someone at the gas station and appeared to have gotten shot. Police found the same Nissan in the area after it crashed into a fire hydrant. The complaint states Davis was wearing a lion’s head pendant that was seen on the man at the Holiday gas station before Carter was shot.

Investigators say phone records put Davis’ phone number in the area with the Nissan Altima throughout the day on Feb. 1, including at the time of the shooting and the Holiday gas station. In addition, Pruitt’s phone records put him with Davis throughout that same evening starting earlier in the afternoon and moving with the Altima. The complaint goes on to say Pruitt’s phone doesn’t have any activity from 9:20 p.m. until 40 minutes after the homicide and is in the same area as Davis’ and Williams’ phones.

The complaint goes on to say the phones for the three men show they moved together for the rest of Feb. 1 and also moved together to a Minneapolis location, where Pruitt stays. The two others traveled to St. Cloud that morning and returned in the early afternoon.

Pruitt made his first court appearance Monday morning and was granted a public defender. He’s being held on a $2 million bail. His next court date is scheduled for May 3.

The complaint notes Pruitt has been previously convicted for conspiracy to commit felon in possession of a firearm in April 2017, as well as crime for benefit of a gang in September of 2015.

If convicted, Pruitt faces a maximum of 40 years in prison.