John Jefferson
Kirk Edward Hazlett III (Pine County Jail).
A long-standing family dispute turned deadly when a Minnesota man allegedly broke into a hunting cabin and killed his father “execution style” as two other men looked on horrified.
The Pine County Sheriff’s Office responded around 8:45 p.m. Friday for a shooting at a cabin in Hinckley, which is about 80 miles north of Minneapolis. The 911 caller told dispatchers that two men came to his home and said the suspect, 31-year-old Kirk Edward Hazlett III had shot his father, 62-year-old Kirk Edward Hazlett II in the head at the cabin next door.
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Deputies traveled on a 1.5-mile dirt road to access the cabin where they found the victim face down on the floor near a couch. He was suffering from nine gunshot wounds to his torso and head, a probable cause affidavit said. One of the surviving victims told deputies that the trio were finishing dinner when he received an alert on his phone about a motion-activated camera on the trail. He looked at the live-view camera on his phone.
“Holy s—, someone just walked through our gate with a pistol in their hand,” the man, who is Kirk Edward Hazlett II’s brother, reportedly said.
He went to grab his handgun in a bedroom, but before he could get to it, the suspect burst through a side door, according to the affidavit. He heard three shots. After coming out to the main room, the man saw the suspect standing with a gun and the victim lying on the floor. The suspect ordered the other two men to sit on the couch. They pleaded with the younger Hazlett not to shoot them. The elder Hazlett was still alive and “breathing a little bit,” one of the surviving victims said. That’s when the suspect walked over to his father and shot him in the head to “make sure” he was dead, police wrote.
After taking their phones, the suspect allowed the other two men to leave. The other surviving victim described the killing to detectives as “execution style.”
“He entered with a mission … he entered to kill him,” the man said, according to the affidavit.
Family members told deputies that the suspect and victim “weren’t getting along and hadn’t for a long time.” The affidavit did not detail the disagreement or what drove the suspect to allegedly kill his own father. Witnesses did describe the suspect as “very coherent” during the attack, cops noted.
Deputies located the suspect at his home in Cambridge. In the driveway was a 2014 black Ford Fusion which deputies say is the car he used to drive to the cabin. Cops had responded to the cabin about a month prior to the murder for a disturbance between the father and son after a night of drinking. The father had his son trespassed from the property, cops said.
The younger Hazlett was taken to the Pine County Jail where he is being held on a $3 million bond. He’s facing second-degree murder, burglary and kidnapping charges.
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