Former Barnum resident accused of 1984 murder

A former Carlton County resident is accused of murdering a man and breaking into a Minneapolis apartment 39 years ago.

Matthew Russell Brown, 66, was charged with second-degree murder and first-degree burglary by electronically filed criminal complaint on May 26 in Fourth District Hennepin County Court. The complaint was sealed until the arrest warrant was served.

According to the now public criminal complaint, police responded to an apartment building at 3209 Girard Ave. South in Minneapolis around 2:30 a.m. July 19, 1984. Two women rushed out of the building, telling police an unknown man had broken into their apartment and attacked them with a knife. When police entered the building, they found a third apartment resident, Robert A. Miller, dead on the floor, with multiple stab wounds. The back door was wide open, and police found blood along the path to the door that did not come from the murder victim. They gathered blood samples, but never solved the case.

Thanks to new technology, the first break in the cold case came 34 years later, when the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension developed a DNA profile from blood collected at the 1984 crime scene.

According to the criminal complaint, over the next few years investigators consulted with a genealogist and determined that, based on the DNA profile, Brown was a suspect. Investigators made multiple attempts to surreptitiously obtain a DNA sample from Brown. Finally, in March, police collected a disposable plastic cup that Brown had used.

The DNA profile from the cup allegedly matched the DNA profile obtained from blood at the crime scene.

A July 21 Facebook post by the Minneapolis Police Department revealed that FBI agents and Minneapolis police investigators had interviewed Brown in Illinois, where he was living.

Following the interview, Brown was booked in jail in Illinois until he could be extradited to Minnesota. Brown made his first court appearance July 24; his next appearance is set for Aug. 28.

Brown’s address is listed as Barnum on the criminal complaint although he had moved to Illinois. He previously worked as a security counselor at the Minnesota Sex Offenders Program in Moose Lake. A divorce decree from 2018 gave his address in Cloquet. He has two children.