Carin Streufert - 1991 Home Town Teen Murdered

 

Carin Streufert grew up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, surrounded by a large family and many friends. She graduated from GRHS in 1990, and besides being a good student, she also played the saxophone in a band and was a swim team captain. She spent her college freshman year at the U of M in Minneapolis. She was beginning to think about a career in early childhood development. However, that changed forever on June 15, 1991, just two weeks before her 19th birthday.

In the early morning hours of June 15th, Carin Streufert, a popular 18 year old girl, was kidnapped. She was last seen alive by her friends at approximately 2:25 am in the morning when she had left the Grand Rapids Perkins to walk home, but she never made it. Her disappearance was unexplained for several days, with the town in shock at the missing teen. 

Until Guy Alan Sullivan walked into the Itasca County Sheriff's office at 3:00 am on June 19th. He told police that his friend Swanson committed the murder and over the course of the next several hours, he made five statements to the police describing the events leading up to Streufert's death. During the first statements, Sullivan described how he and Swanson approached Streufert. They had been driving in Sullivan's car when

Swanson saw Streufert and said, "I want that girl". On Swanson's orders, Sullivan pulled the car up beside Streufert. Swanson then got out of the car and forced Streufert to get in by pointing a gun at her. Once she got in the backseat they drove to Jacobson, about 20 minutes from Grand Rapids.

In his first statements, Sullivan said that he remained in the car while Swanson took Streufert to a clearing in a wooded area and raped and murdered her. Following his second statement, he took the police to the trail that leads to the clearing where the acts occurred. When he returned with the police to Grand Rapids, he gave another statement that was similar to the ones he had already given. That evening Sullivan gave his fifth statement to the police. This statement was materially different from the previous statements he had given. Whereas before he denied that he and Swanson had approached other women on the evening of Streufert's murder, in this statement he admitted that they had followed about seven or eight cars with women in them that night. Additionally, he also changed his story regarding staying in the car while Swanson raped and murdered Streufert. In this statement, he claimed that he also went to clearing. He stated that Swanson held him at gunpoint and forced him to have intercourse with Streufert. He continued to deny that he committed the murder, saying that Swanson fired both shots, but he did admit that after Streufert was shot, that he helped Swanson drag her body away from the clearing. He then lead the police to the site where Streufert was buried. 

Sullivan was then charged with first-degree premeditated murder for the murder of Carin Streufert. He was also charged with three counts of first-degree felony murder and one count of kidnapping. The offenses underlying the felony murder counts were: kidnapping; aiding and abetting first or second-degree criminal sexual conduct; and first or second-degree criminal sexual conduct. At trial, the state used the five statements Sullivan gave to police. They had an expert testimony which explained that Streufert was shot once in the back of her head and a second time under her jaw, each shot was lethal in itself. Swanson's fingerprints were found on the gun, but Sullivan's were not. The blood that was found on Sullivan's pants was human, but the stains were too small to allow testing for blood types. ABO blood type testing on semen samples that were taken from a tampon pushed up into Streufert's uterus established that the semen came from a type B secretor, the same type as Sullivan and the semen could not have come from Swanson, a non-secretor who has no traceable ABO factors in his semen. Sullivan's defense was that he had been forced by Swanson to participate in the kidnapping and rape and that he had not participated in the murder. He was convicted on all counts, except first-degree premeditated murder. 

This appeal followed. First, the state introduced and the court admitted over objection, ten photographs of Streufert, including one taken before she was murdered, two autopsy photos showing her injuries, and seven pictures of the site where Streufert was buried. Sullivan argues that these photos were not relevant and served merely to arouse the prejudice of the jury. Second, the state introduced testimony from Meredith Friberg, who testified that two men, one of whom she identified as Sullivan, approached her on the night that Streufert was murdered. Friberg testified that one of the men said "hello" to her as they passed and that the men watched her enter her house. Sullivan argues that the introduction of this testimony denied him a fair trial. It was decided that the photographs were admissible as competent evidence. Sullivan also tried to rebut Friberg's testimony but that was also found as competent evidence. 

The small town of Grand Rapids was rocked by the violent abduction and murder of the popular teenage girl. Where people had left their doors unlocked and trusted their neighbors after Carin's murder people trusted less. Paranoid over the fear of it happening again. 

References: 

-http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200004/24_newsroom_ruralcrime-m/smalltown.shtml

- https://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/supreme-court/1993/c4-92-573-2.html

- https://gracf.org/help-honor-the-life-and-memory-of-carin-streufert/