Four charged in death of Minnetonka High School student
Updated: Sept. 28, 5:10 p.m. | Posted: Sept. 27, 1:44 p.m.
Four people have been charged in the shooting death of a Minnetonka High School student in an armed robbery in St. Paul on Sunday.
Christopher Calloway, 32, of South St. Paul faces three felony counts, including two murder counts and an aggravated robbery count in the death of 16-year-old Samantha Burnette. Kalisa Smith, 29, of South St. Paul, and Davonte Bobo, 24, of West St. Paul, and Vincent Reanell Harris, 29, of St. Paul, face similar charges.
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A criminal complaint said that Burnette's sister, Brittany Rock, drove Smith's car to an alley behind a home on St. Paul's east side, at Smith's direction before the robbery. An account that accompanies the charges said that Smith got out of the car and a man got into the front passenger seat where she'd been sitting. He pulled out a gun and said "Give me everything."
Rock said the man hit her with the pistol and stole a cell phone. She ran from the car and heard a gunshot. She told police she saw her assailant still sitting in the car as Smith got behind the wheel and drove off. Rock found her sister, Burnette, lying in the alley, dying from a gunshot wound. Another young woman in the car said that Burnette had hit the man in the front seat in the head with a liquor bottle from the back seat.
Burnette was a junior at Minnetonka High School, and lived with her grandmother. She'd been visiting Rock, her 20-year-old sister, in St. Paul for the weekend.
After the shooting, police found Smith's car crashed nearby, and a police dog found Rock's cell phone laying in a nearby wooded area. Smith later called police and said she'd been the victim of a domestic assault involving her boyfriend, Calloway.
He was arrested in South St. Paul, and declined to talk to police. People at the scene of his arrest said Calloway had talked about being hit on the head with a bottle and that he'd talked about being involved in a robbery and murder. Smith later told police that Calloway had asked her if the women in her car had money, and that she knew he planned to rob them and would share the proceeds of the robbery.
She also told police that she saw Burnette hit Calloway with a bottle, and that she believed another accomplice had also fired a gun during the robbery. Ramsey County prosecutors say Calloway has a record of eight prior felony convictions, including armed robbery and aggravated battery. Bobo has pending felony charges in Olmsted County and a conviction for first-degree aggravated robbery, according to charges.