A Bagley man is accused of breaking into a farm shop near Mentor in the middle of the night and shooting the property’s owner in the head when he opened the door, according to a criminal complaint.
Leslie Manford Anderson, who was 79 at the time of the alleged offense, faces seven felony charges: attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault causing great bodily harm, three counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of first-degree burglary. The complaint was filed Sept. 22 in Polk County District Court.
According to the complaint, Polk County deputies were sent at about 2:48 a.m. on Sept. 20 to a farm near Mentor after a report that Anderson had shot a man in the head and fled. A deputy found the man sitting on the ground near a metal shop, covered in blood, and drove him away to meet medical crews. He told her Anderson had tried to murder him, the complaint says.
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The man had gone to the farm after a trail camera showed someone walking across the property that night pulling a wagon, according to the complaint, and the farm had been broken into before. He found the shop had been forced open.
One of two women who were with him told deputies that when he opened the shop door, Anderson came out, pushed him and shot him, then pointed the handgun at the two women and fired. The other woman said the first shot missed and the two men wrestled to the ground before another shot was fired. She also said Anderson had accused the man of stealing property from him, that it was Anderson who had stolen from them, and that they had not seen or spoken with him in about five years.
Deputies later found Anderson at a home in Bagley, where he invited them in and said he had been expecting them, the complaint says. He told them he believed the man had been stealing his tools, and that he drove to the farm overnight in his 1953 Ford, parked off County Road 45, walked through a field pulling a homemade cart and used a crowbar to break into a building.
Anderson claimed the man pointed a small-caliber pistol at him and that it went off a couple of times as they fell to the ground, and said he thought a shot had grazed the man’s head, according to the complaint. He said he then drove to Gonvick, where he left the cart, burned the clothes he had worn and did not call police because he had been breaking in. He told deputies he had never owned a pistol but had two rifles.
Investigators found tools etched with the man’s last name in the grass about 100 yards from the shop. Search warrants turned up a Ford convertible whose tire treads matched marks found near the farm, and two .22-caliber rifles with two boxes of ammunition, one of them missing six rounds, the complaint says.
Prosecutors gave notice that they intend to seek a mandatory minimum prison sentence or a longer sentence than the guidelines call for because a firearm was used. The attempted murder count carries up to 20 years in prison.
