ROSEMOUNT, Minn. – Police say a body found in a ditch south of Minneapolis has been identified as that of a missing University of Minnesota student.
The Hennepin County medical examiner's office confirmed on Tuesday that a body found in a ditch a day earlier was that of 20-year-old Anarae Schunk.
Schunk was last seen on Sept. 22 with her ex-boyfriend at a bar in Burnsville, a city about 20 miles south of Minneapolis.
The ex-boyfriend, Anthony Lee Nelson, is charged with fatally shooting a man outside the bar the bar the same night.
Schunk's brother says police had asked the family for dental records after the body was found.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Police have asked the family of a missing University of Minnesota student for dental records after a body was discovered in a ditch in Rice County.
Burnsville police have told the family of Anarae Schunk that investigators fear she is dead. The 20-year-old woman was last seen in the early hours of Sept. 22 at Nina's Grill in Burnsville with her ex-boyfriend, Anthony Lee Nelson, also known as Shavelle Oscar Chavez-Nelson, and his current girlfriend, Ashley Conrade. Schunk reconnected with her old boyfriend in hopes of recovering a $5,000 loan he had never repaid, according to her family and friends.
Her brother, Tyson Schunk, said police requested the dental records late Monday night so a medical examiner could quickly determine if the body found near Lonsdale is his sister. The body was found about 30 minutes from where his sister was last seen, Schunk said.
Nelson, 31, is charged with fatally shooting a man during a fight in the parking lot of a bar the night Schunk disappeared. Witnesses told police that Nelson was upset with the man, Palagor Jobi, for talking to Conrade and that they exchanged words before Jobi punched him. The complaint says Nelson then shot Jobi eight times.
Conrade told investigators that Schunk went with them back to her Rosemount townhouse, police said. Neither Nelson — who has a long criminal record — nor Conrade have been charged in Schunk's disappearance. Conrade is charged with aiding an offender after police say she harbored Nelson before he was arrested last Tuesday in Jobi's death.
Nelson's criminal history started with selling drugs, escalated to stealing a car and robbing an apartment and now to murder charges in the fatal shooting in Burnsville, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Court records show Nelson has had more than one chance at staying out of prison after he was first convicted of felony drug sales in 1999. He received a stayed prison sentence on the condition that he stay out of trouble. Nelson broke that condition and spent about six months in prison.
Twice following his prison time, Nelson was sentenced to time at the Hennepin County Workhouse and probation for convictions on felony charges. Then he served nearly eight years in prison for an armed robbery during which he threatened several people with a pistol in Brooklyn Park.
He was released last year and met Anarae Schunk. Just a week before the Burnsville shooting, he posted bail in Hennepin County on new charges that he forced his way into a Richfield apartment in June armed with a gun.
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Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
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