MENOMONIE, Wis. (AP) — A Minnesota man accused of helping his son hide four bodies in a Wisconsin cornfield has been sentenced to 16 years in prison, online court records show.
Dunn County Circuit Judge James Peterson sentenced 59-year-old Darren Osborne of St. Paul on Thursday. A jury found him guilty of four counts of hiding a corpse in October. Peterson gave him four years in prison for each victim.
According to prosecutors, Osborne’s son, Antoine Suggs, of Scottsdale, Arizona, shot the four after a night of drinking in St. Paul in September 2021. Killed were 30-year-old Jasmine Sturm; her brother, 26-year-old Matthew Pettus; her boyfriend, 35-year-old Loyace Foreman III; and her friend, 30-year-old Nitosha Flug-Presley.
Suggs told his father that he “snapped” and shot a couple of people, according to a criminal complaint charging him with four counts of second-degree murder. Osborne followed Suggs to a Dunn County cornfield, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) east of St. Paul. They left the bodies in Suggs’ Mercedes Benz SUV, abandoned the vehicle in the cornfield and left in Osborne’s vehicle. A farmer who owned the cornfield discovered the bodies.
Suggs testified he shot the four in self-defense because he thought they were going to rob him but prosecutors countered that his motive was unclear but he meant to kill them. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 103 years in prison in 2023.
A Minnesota judge sentenced Osborne to almost five years in prison in 2022 for helping his son. He’ll serve what remains of the Minnesota sentence and the Wisconsin sentence concurrently.
Court records indicate that three attorneys who have represented Osborne in Wisconsin case have each withdrawn and Osborne represented himself at sentencing.
