Man charged in deaths of his pregnant girlfriend and her son

A Cloquet man was charged with killing his girlfriend, Jackie DeFoe, her 20-month-old son, Kevin, and her unborn child in Sixth District Carlton County Court on Tuesday, March 10.

Sheldon James Thompson, 33, faces two charges of second-degree murder and a third count of second-degree murder of an unborn child.

The killings, disclosed Sunday morning by the Cloquet Police Department, rocked the communities of the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and Cloquet, where the victims and the suspect lived.

Details of the autopsy report released Tuesday indicate that DeFoe was stabbed multiple times and her young son died from blunt force trauma. DeFoe was 13 weeks pregnant.

Sixth District Judge Rebekka Stumme set bail for Thompson at $1 million Tuesday, with no 10-percent cash option, citing the seriousness of the charges and lengthy prison sentence if he is found guilty. She also pointed to a pre-trial release evaluation that shows he is a flight risk and has a lengthy record of past criminal convictions. Thompson's criminal record in Minnesota includes convictions for second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon along with third-degree and fifth-degree assaults as well as domestic assault charges.

According to the complaint and prior police press releases:

Fond du Lac police officers responded to a call for service Saturday, March 7, around 1 p.m. from a reporting party who said they had spoken with Thompson the previous day, and that he was acting unusual. When asked what was the matter, Thompson allegedly told the caller that he had killed DeFoe, making a gesture that indicated strangulation. He also allegedly told the caller he had killed her son.

When Fond du Lac officers went to DeFoe’s residence on Locke Lane and knocked on the door, they did not get a response. They couldn’t see inside, but observed damage to the door. A FDL housing worker told them he had performed work at the residence on Friday, March 6, and the house was in disarray, which he stated was unusual. He had not gone into the bedrooms, he told them, because the doors were shut.

After police received a search warrant to enter the home later Saturday, they found DeFoe in a closet with stab wounds to her body and one across the front of her neck. They found her son’s body in another bedroom, with observable bruising around the head. According to the criminal complaint, Thompson allegedly told numerous people that he had killed DeFoe and her child. Attempts to locate Thompson, who had lived there intermittently, were initially unsuccessful. Police got a tip that he was in a vehicle with someone, but when they contacted the person, she said she had picked him up at a home in Cloquet and they’d driven around for a period of time before she dropped him off on the side of the road.

Thompson called 911 and indicated that he wanted to turn himself in, giving them an address. When police arrived, he wasn’t there.

With the assistance of a Minnesota State Patrol helicopter and a K-9 from the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office, he was located in a wooded area off Mission Road in Perch Lake Township and taken into custody Sunday evening.

He was booked into the Carlton County jail at 8:43 p.m. Sunday after being treated at Cloquet Memorial Hospital for temperature-related issues.

Thompson’s next court appearance is set for Monday, March 16.