A St. Paul man was searching for someone else when he shot and killed a 33-year-old man inside his West Seventh home last month, authorities say.
Antonio Lee Richardson, 30, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder in the April 15 death of Matthew Richard Schramm, according to the criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court.
A neighbor’s tip helped police track down a man who said he drove Richardson to Schramm’s house in the 1700 block of Benson Avenue immediately before the shooting.
The neighbor said he watched as an SUV pulled into the driveway and a man climbed out and began knocking on doors and windows and yelling into the house. Someone then let him inside, charges say.
The man left the house minutes later in the same vehicle.
Surveillance video captured from a nearby house and business helped police locate the SUV and its driver three days later.
The driver told police Richardson had shown up at his house April 15, waving a gun around and demanding to see a man by the initials LAF, charges say.
Under Richardson’s instructions, the driver said he took Richardson to the Benson address to find LAF. Richardson went inside the home briefly and returned to the SUV, he said.
That’s when Richardson told the driver he’d just shot “Dude,” according to the complaint.
The driver asked if he meant LAF. Richardson said no, that he shot someone else. Richardson then threatened to “take care of him too” if the driver called police, charges say.
Richardson changed his clothes in the SUV and was dropped off several miles away, according to the complaint.
Other witnesses told police that before the shooting, Richardson had stopped by a different house on Nokomis Avenue in search of LAF because LAF had previously kidnapped him and held him hostage in a basement.
Someone at that house called LAF to warn him to stay away from the Benson home.
LAF reportedly showed up at the house anyway, found Schramm badly injured and unresponsive, and called police, the complaint said.
The Ramsey County medical examiner determined Schramm died from a gunshot wound to his head.
In a police interview, Richardson denied any animosity toward LAF or playing a role in Schramm’s killing, according to the complaint.
Melissa Anderson, who described Schramm as her best friend, told the Pioneer Press that Schramm bought the Benson Avenue home after his grandmother’s death and liked to host parties there.
She said she’d recently stopped seeing her friend as often because he’d started hanging around with “not so great people.” LAF was one of them, she said. Over time, people Schramm didn’t know well started frequenting the house.
“They made him feel cooler, these people, even though those people weren’t really his friends,” Anderson said. “They were just using him.”
They ended up costing him his life, Anderson added.
“Nobody would ever do this to Schramm. He is too nice of a kid. It was someone else’s problem and he got caught in the middle,” she said.
Anderson said she’ll remember her friend as someone who could light up a room with his smile and would go out of his way to help a stranger.
He loved hockey, a good party and spending time with friends and family, she said.
“He was just like a really, really awesome, loving, great friend and family member who didn’t deserve this,” she said.
Richardson is being held in the Ramsey County Jail and was expected to make his first court appearance on the charges Thursday afternoon.
No attorney was listed for him in court records.
Richardson’s criminal history includes past convictions for third- and fifth-degree assault, domestic assault and drug possession.