Guilty verdict comes quickly in Thompson murder trial

A Carlton County jury of 10 men and two women deliberated about five hours Tuesday before finding Sheldon Thompson guilty of eight counts of murder. Five of those eight counts are first-degree murder charges, which come with an automatic sentence of life in prison.

Thompson, 35, was accused and found guilty of brutally killing his pregnant girlfriend, Jackie Defoe, their unborn child, and 20-month-old Kevin Lee Shabaiash Jr. in March 2020.

About two dozen people attended the final hearing at the Carlton County Courthouse. Jackie Defoe’s mother, friends and extended family filled two rows of reserved seating and more on the right side of the courtroom. Two women sat in the front row seats reserved for Thompson’s family, the older woman’s shoulders shaking before and after the verdicts were read.

Reminded by judge Jill Eichenwald that the rules of decorum still applied, the courtroom was absolutely silent as the verdict for each charge was read aloud, each one a guilty verdict.

It was the fifth and final day of a triple-murder trial delayed two years by Covid-19 and legal complications. Attorneys for the prosecution argued that they had proven Thompson’s guilt far beyond reasonable doubt, while attorneys for the defense argued the opposite and tried to cast doubt.

Thompson did not testify. He doesn’t have to, Eichenwald reminded the jury. The judge also stressed that it was the job of the jury to determine what witnesses were credible and how to weigh the evidence in the case. She noted that witness testimony is evidence, but statements by the attorneys are not.

Arguing for the prosecution, assistant Minnesota attorney general Erin Eldridge walked the jury through the evidence, witness testimony and videos of Defoe and Thompson.

Eldridge shared the prosecution’s best guess for how events unfolded in early March 2020. Their hypothetical story was based on physical evidence from the crime scene, witness testimony, statements made or texted by Thompson to friends and family and videos of three different cars driven by Thompson down the dead-end Locke Lane where he had lived with Defoe and Shabaiash. She talked timelines, motives and ticked through different pieces of evidence and testimony that appeared to corroborate the prosecution’s theory that Thompson likely murdered Defoe and Shabaiash on the morning of March 5. Video from Min No Aya Win clinic cameras shows the green Buick he drove entering Locke Lane at 8:17 a.m. that day, then he called Jackie Defoe’s cell number.

Some of the evidence was acts by omission. That early morning call was the last time Thompson called or texted that number at any time leading up to his arrest March 8. Later that morning, he drove the green Buick away for the last time, although he did return to Locke Lane in two different cars in the days that followed.

“He knows he can’t be seen with that car at that house anymore,” Eldridge said. Thompson sold the car — originally purchased by Jackie Defoe — the next day.

A palm print in blood discovered above a light switch in Jackie Defoe’s room appeared as one of the strongest pieces of evidence: the print was Thompson’s, the blood it was made of was Defoe’s, according to expert testimony.

There was blood that matched Thompson’s DNA on the wall of Shabaiash’s bedroom. Why would his blood be on the wall above the mattress where the dead toddler was found, Eldridge asked. “I submit he leaned on the wall while he stomped on Baby Kevin’s head, and the blood came from a tiny cut on his finger,” she told the jury, showing them a photo of the healing cut after his arrest.

Witness testimony was also convincing. Thompson’s cousin, Taylor Smith, testified on the first day of the trial that he told her he had killed Jackie and her son, and asked her to drive him out of Minnesota on a drive to the Cloquet Kwik Trip on March 6. Former Fond du Lac police officer Nils Hansen shared what Thompson said after he was arrested March 8, when he was being checked over by paramedics in an ambulance. After telling Thompson to focus on getting medical attention, Hansen said he heard Thompson say that “he had messed up and he was going to go away for a long time.”

In closing arguments for the defense, attorney Jesse Dong did his best to cast doubt on the evidence presented by the prosecution, rattling off a list of issues with the prosecution: unclear forensics, mistaken timing, lack of motive, no confession and a bad investigation.

“There’s a saying that DNA doesn’t lie, but DNA also doesn’t tell when, how or why something got there,” he said, pointing to blood belonging to both Thompson and Defoe found in the bathroom. Dong questioned the spray used by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to identify blood traces, pointing out that there were blue splatters on a sticker above the palm print and citing statistics that print analysis has an error rate between 3 and 7 percent.

He also wondered aloud why Baby Kevin’s father wasn’t investigated as a suspect. He shared DNA with his son, and the DNA under Defoe’s fingernails attributed to her son could have been his father’s.

“Were they truly trying to figure out who did this or did they stop once they decided [they had] Sheldon Thompson?” Dong said.

In her rebuttal, Eldridge urged the jury to use common sense when looking at the evidence and deciding guilt, pushing back on Dong’s claims that there was no confession — “There were multiple confessions,” she said — and rebuking his assertion that Thompson cried in the back of the squad car when it drove past Locke Lane because he was a “grieving partner.”

Charges

Thompson was charged with murder in the first degree-premeditated for the deaths of Defoe, Shabaiash and the unborn child. He was also charged with murder in the first degree while commiting domestic violence with a past pattern of domestic abuse of Defoe and Shabaiash. He also faced two charges of murder in the second degree for Defoe and Shabaiash and murder in the second degree of an unborn child-intent, not premeditated.

All of the first-degree murder charges carry with them a penalty of life imprisonment without release, while the second-degree murder charges have a maximum penalty of not more than 40 years imprisonment.

The judge, and later Eldridge, carefully explained what requirements must be met for the defendant to be found guilty of the different charges. Eldridge reminded them of evidence presented during testimony to prove the first-degree charges.

During the trial, the prosecution had called witness Rachel Dickenson, who had a prior relationship with Thompson from 2013 to 2016, to help establish a past pattern of domestic abuse.

Dickenson testified in October 2013 that Thompson had put her in a chokehold, bit her and punched her in the head until she ran into the bathroom. In 2016, she testified, he punched her in the face when she was driving until she crashed, then threatened to kill her and dump her body in the Ditchbanks. The same year he stomped on her head and broke her jaw.

There were differences between the explanation of premeditation by the prosecution and the defense, with Eldridge telling the jury that premeditation doesn’t have to mean a well considered plan.

Dong suggested there was no evidence of premeditation, no well-executed plans for disposing of the bodies or fleeing the area, adding that his client hadn’t committed the murder.

“You would assume a person would plan a way to get rid of the body,” he said. “There was no getaway plan … ultimately he just had a car stop and jumped out and ran into the woods.”

One thing the prosecution and defense did agree upon was the horrific nature of the murders. They just didn’t agree who committed them.

The brutal nature of the killing amounts to premeditation, Eldridge said. Jackie Defoe’s throat was slashed; she was also stabbed more than 30 times in the back, one time so violently it left a hilt mark in her back. Shabaiash was also brutally murdered: his skull and jaw fractured, legs broken, evidence of either strangulation or choking on his own blood in the autopsy.

“Even if you don’t think the first stab was premeditated, numbers 29, 30, 31 definitely are,” she said, adding that Thompson continued to stab Defoe long after her heart had stopped beating.

The sentencing hearing is set for 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 15.