Ed wrote about this story last week after Shannon Brandt was released on a paltry $50,000 bail. That seemed extremely low for what looked like a murder. But at the time, Brandt was only charged with criminal vehicular homicide which is the unintentional killing of someone with a car. Today, those charges were dropped and replaced with a homicide charge.
The new charge — murder with a dangerous weapon — is a felony that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison upon conviction. Brandt is also charged with leaving the scene of a crash that resulted in death.
According to a probable cause affidavit released Friday, Brandt told a 911 dispatcher that if it was a total accident he wouldn’t be so scared, “but I know it was more than that.”
So this case has at least been upgraded to the proper charge for which the initial bail amount was obviously insufficient. But the main reason this story got so much attention was that Brandt claimed he ran over 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson because they’d had a political dispute. He claimed during his 911 call that Ellingson was an extremist Republican which made the incident sound like a politically-motivated murder. But police announced a few days ago they said there is no evidence politics were involved.
North Dakota Highway Patrol Captain Bryan Niewind told Fox News Digital on Sunday that there’s “no evidence” that Ellingson was a “Republican extremist” or that the incident involved politics.
“We have uncovered no evidence to support Mr. Brandt’s claim on the 911 call he made that Cayler Ellingson is a Republican extremist, nor that this incident involved politics,” Niewind said. “This is a terrible tragedy for the Ellingson family. We continue to investigate what led up to the incident, the crash itself and the claim made by Brandt. But, at this time there has been no evidence to corroborate Brandt’s statement.”
Brandt was drunk (blood alcohol of 0.08) when he ran over Ellingson. According to Brandt’s neighbors he has undiagnosed mental problems that get worse when he drinks.
One of Brandt’s neighbors told Fox News Digital that he has been “nuts his whole life” and “should have been in a [mental health] institute.”
The neighbor also added Brandt’s bail was “extremely low” for what he allegedly did, adding that it should have been higher, and saying that the 41-year-old “had too much to drink” the night of the incident. When Brandt is drunk, the neighbor alleged, he goes on “rampages.”
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Four of Brandt’s neighbors said that the incident didn’t have anything to do with politics, but rather Brandt’s mental health conditions.
Neighbors say that Brandt’s accusation that Ellingson was part of a “Republican extremist group” was an excuse for what he allegedly did.
So if this wasn’t spurred by politics, what was it about? Based on the new probable cause affidavit it sounds like Brandt became convinced Ellingson had called people who were coming to get him. That sounds pretty paranoid but according to Ellingson’s mother, he did call and ask whether he should call his “posse” of cousins and she told him not to.
Brandt told the dispatcher that Ellingson had called others and Brandt was worried they were on their way. Brandt said Ellingson also wouldn’t let him leave and called someone to come “handle him,” the affidavit said. The investigation showed that the only calls Ellingson placed before the accident were to his mom and dad.
The affidavit says that in one of the phone calls, Ellingson asked his mother if she knew who Brandt was. In another, Ellingson told his mother that maybe he should call his cousins or “posse.” His mother told him that he didn’t need to do that and she was on her way to pick him up. She told investigators that at that point, she didn’t know if her son felt threatened.
Ellingson’s mother received another call at 2:42 a.m. in which Ellingson said someone was after him.
That call was cut off and that was the last time she spoke to him.
It’s still not really clear what started this. Obviously there was some kind of argument and maybe at some point Ellingson felt threatened and did say something about calling his family for backup. And because Brandt was drunk and has mental problems he escalated to murder.
According to the Post story, the physical evidence suggests Ellingson didn’t die from being hit by Brandt’s car, i.e. he didn’t sideswipe him or smack into him with enough force to cause fatal injuries. Instead, Ellingson died from being run over while he was already on the ground. In his 911 call, Brandt told the dispatcher, “I hit him and I didn’t mean to and he’s subdued I was scared to death but he’s subdued, he can’t do anything to me now.”
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