Crime Solvers Central
Crime Solvers Central
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On August 27, 2020, 22-year-old Karl Mitchell Henderson was shot and killed in his home on West Shadow Lake Drive in Lino Lakes, Minnesota. His father returned from grocery shopping around 2:30 p.m., found an unfamiliar black SUV in the driveway and confronted a man and woman in the kitchen.

Inside the house the father found Karl downstairs in his bedroom, face down and mortally wounded from a gunshot to the abdomen. Investigators recovered a 9-millimeter handgun near Karl that did not belong to the family; DNA testing on the firearm linked it to 43-year-old Nicholas Walter Zielinski of Hermantown. The father identified Zielinski from a photo lineup, and cell phone tracking plus neighbors’ doorbell footage helped identify the woman as Zielinski’s 47-year-old sister, Melissa Madelyne Zielinski. Police say the pair went to the house to rob Karl, believing he kept a large sum of money in a safe, and a struggle over the gun ended with Karl shot.

Were anyone in the neighborhood that afternoon or anyone with information about the SUV or the pair seen around West Shadow Lake Drive willing to come forward?