Patrick Jeffrey Roers was 35 when he was killed while sitting in his vehicle in the Super 8 motel parking lot in Cloquet, Minnesota, on the evening of January 8, 2024. He had been in town for his first week of training at a new job as a tree excavator and was texting his parents about coming home for the weekend when the attack occurred. Law enforcement found him deceased in his truck after he was shot multiple times.

The shooter, identified as 32-year-old Nicholas Elliot Lenius, first shot and killed 22-year-old hotel clerk Shellby Marie Trettel inside the motel, then encountered Roers outside and fatally shot him before turning the gun on himself. Investigators, using motel surveillance footage, have found no established connection between Lenius and either victim and describe the attacks as seemingly random. A toxicology report detected methamphetamine in Lenius’s system, and police say they believe drug use and a possible mental health episode may have played a role.

Does anyone have information about Patrick’s time in Cloquet that could help piece together his final hours?