Former Cloquet resident may get new murder trial

MPR News

A man convicted of killing a Minneapolis teenager will need to be re-tried, after the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned a guilty verdict in the case.

In January 2023, Cody Fohrenkam, a former Calrton County resident was found guilty of fatally shooting 15-year-old North High School student Deshaun Hill in 2022. Fohrenkam was sentenced to more than 38 years in prison.

In an appeal of the jury’s verdict, Fohrenkam argued that he was unconstitutionally detained for an interrogation early in the investigation of the case.

Police began looking for Fohrenkam as a suspect shortly after the shooting, and discovered that he was in custody in Carlton County for an unrelated criminal matter. Investigators arrived to question him over an hour after he was due to be released.

The Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the state failed to prove that Fohrenkam’s statements were lawfully obtained and the court reversed the conviction.

A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said prosecutors are determining their next steps with the case.

Prosecutors can appeal the court’s ruling to the state Supreme Court.

The criminal complaint said witnesses and surveillance video put Fohrenkam at the scene of the shooting on Feb. 9, 2020. The complaint didn’t detail a motive, but prosecutors had said during the trial that Fohrenkam grew increasingly angry after an unknown person punched him and stole his phone earlier that day.

Deshaun’s friends and family said that he was a role model to his siblings, classmates and teammates.

Local connections

By Pine Knot News

Carlton County residents may have recognized Fohrenkam’s name from a 2013 case, when Fohrenkam was 21. He and an accomplice stopped two teenage boys who were walking down Doddridge Avenue in Cloquet. The two 21-year-olds got out of a car and demanded the then 13- and 14-year-old boys give them their tennis shoes and the contents of their pockets, which turned out to be a cell phone and their wallets. Fohrenkam was convicted of felony simple robbery in that case, and the shoes were eventually returned.

Fohrenkam was convicted in 2012 for second-degree arson in Carlton County for setting a fire on the back porch of a residence while the residents were in the home.

A felony charge of fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) and two misdemeanor charges against Fohrenkam were dismissed by the Carlton County attorney’s office in August of 2018 after a former Cloquet police officer, Scott Beckman, was accused of lying under oath. It was one of 18 cases dismissed that August in which Beckman would have been a witness.

Fohrenkam’s fairly lengthy criminal history includes drug possession, another simple robbery, driving and weapons violations in Hennepin, St. Louis and Carlton counties dating back to 2010.

Fohrenkam was already in the Carlton County jail when the second-degree murder charges were filed in Hennepin County in late 2022. He had been arrested by Fond du Lac police for possession of marijuana, trespassing and probation violation.

After his transfer to Minneapolis last year, Fohrenkam’s mother told a Twin Cities television station that her son had for months been “homeless, staying with people — sometimes in Minneapolis, sometimes with her on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation.”

This story originally appeared on our partner news organization's website, here: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/05/28/appeals-court-overturns-conviction-in-fatal-shooting-of-minneapolis-teenager-deshaun-hill