Super 8 shooting fueled by meth, 'monsters'

The Cloquet Police Department and investigators of the deadly Jan. 8 shooting at the Super 8 hotel in Cloquet have determined that the shooter was a stranger to his two victims, had methamphetamine in his system, and was likely having a "mental health episode" when he shot a front desk clerk inside the hotel, a guest in the parking lot, and then himself.

The shooter, Nicholas Elliot Lenius, 32, contacted a work associate during the early evening incident and said he was "dealing with monsters," Cloquet police chief Derek Randall wrote in a press release issued Monday.

After a thorough search of phones and social media, investigators did not find any links between Lenius and the victims, Shellby Trettel, 22, of Cloquet, and Patrick Jeffrey Roers, 35, of Deer River.

Randall's review of the evidence was made clear Monday. "We assessed that the victims were unknown to the suspect based on the gathered information. Furthermore, the suspect may have been experiencing a mental health episode, potentially compounded by the influence of drugs."

The Pine Knot reported in late January that Lenius had limited brushes with police in his past, but he did have two serious driving-under-the-influence convictions. While navigating the court system for the 2013 and 2014 DUIs, Lenius was ordered to have both chemical and mental health assessments done. When going in to serve a monthlong jail sentence in May 2015 related to a DUI case, a required urine sample showed methamphetamine in his system. Records are unclear on how that fact altered his lingering probation. He was off probation for the DUI and the spiderweb of court orders by 2018.

There were no other court records on Lenius after that year.

A Super 8 employee found Trettel hurt near the front desk around 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 8 and called 911 to report that it looked like she had been attacked. She later died at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth.

Roers was found dead in his truck in the parking lot, next to Lenius' vehicle.

Lenius, who lived in the Twin Cities suburb of Ramsey, was later found dead in the area with a weapon nearby. Police used surveillance footage to determine that he was the shooter and determined that a rare community "shelter in place" warning could be lifted.

Lenius was seen on the phone during the shootings. Warrants after the incident revealed that he was speaking with his work "supervisor," who told police that Lenius had messaged "WTF is going on" to the supervisor's phone. The supervisor told police that he called Lenius, which matched what police had seen from camera footage.

"During the interviews, officers discovered that the suspect had contacted a co-worker and referenced dealing with 'monsters,'" Randall wrote.

The press release was labeled a "final" report on the incident. The department will send its reports to the Carlton County Attorney's Office for review.

Randall said "our staff has been in contact with the victims' families throughout ... and we send our heartfelt condolences to them and everyone affected by the tragedy."