Posted: 7/5/07
Man murders wife, turns gun on himself
By Joel Stottrup
A man and wife in Baldwin Township are dead as the result of a murder/suicide last week, according to a preliminary ruling released by the Sherburne County Sheriff's Department.
The deceased are Joe Reeve, 73, and his wife Judith Carrico-Reeve, 64.
The ruling states that Joe Reeve fatally shot his wife the evening of Wednesday, June 27, at their home along the east side of Little Elk Lake. Shortly afterwards, Reeve fatally shot himself.
Captain Joel Brott, with the sheriff's department, said a 911 call was made by a male inside the home at 28326 139th St. at 10:16 p.m. on June 27. The caller identified himself and said that shots had been fired inside the home and that he and his wife were in the house.
When questioned further, the caller hung up on the dispatcher and would not take any more calls.
Sherburne County deputies responded to the call and discovered the body of an adult female victim on the floor just inside the house. Deputies received no response in attempts to make contact with anyone inside the house. While on the scene, the deputies learned from neighbors that they had heard two gunshots approximately 20 minutes apart.
The Sherburne County Emergency Response Unit was notified and it entered the home and located the deceased body of an adult male in the home's attached garage.
Sherburne County Criminal Investigative Division officers were called and they obtained a search warrant for the residence. The investigators learned that the adult female had been shot once in the head and that the adult male had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. An autopsy was conducted at the Ramsey County Medical Office.
Identification was made and children of the couple were notified. Brott did not have a count of the number of children but said they were from both sides and all were grown.
There had been no previous domestic calls to the Reeve home but the investigation revealed there had been some marital discord, according to Brott.
The Reeve home is part of a string of nicely-kept homes along a stretch of shore on the east side of Little Elk Lake. A quaint wooden sign with carved letters stands at the end of the Reeve driveway, referring to the residence as the "Old Folks Home".
Reaction from
neighbor
Michael Sandin, 39, the neighbor directly north of the Reeve residence, said on Friday that he was surprised by the incident. He said he had known the Reeve couple since the Reeves moved into the neighborhood in the early 1980s and found them to be the "nicest neighbors."
"I never heard any arguments," Sandin commented.
Sandin and at least one other neighbor were evacuated from their homes when deputies responded to the 911 call.
Sandin said he had been lying in bed watching TV sometime before 10 p.m. the night of the shootings when he heard a loud pop noise outside. Fireworks had been going off in the sky over the lake for some days and Sandin got up to see if he could see a sparkling burst from what he thought was maybe a Roman candle.
All he saw was darkness, he said, and so he went back to lie down again. Sandin noted that about 15-20 minutes later he heard a second loud pop and again thinking it might be fireworks, looked out his second-floor bedroom window and saw nothing.
He lay down again, he said, but about five minutes later was alerted to someone pounding outside, which was a deputy rapping on the door of the Reeve home, yelling for Joe Reeve to come to the door.
Sandin recounted hopping out of bed, awakening his wife Lori and telling her he thought something bad had happened at the Reeve home.
Shortly after, as Sandin was standing in front of his window screen peering out to see what was going on, he said, he heard the voice of a man commanding him to step away from the window. Sandin said he then heard another set of knocking sounds on the Reeve door and someone yelling for Joe Reeve to come to the door.
Sandin's doorbell then rang and when he answered it, he was met by a deputy in a flak jacket and carrying a rifle. The deputy told Sandin to take his family and leave the house.
Sandin did so, taking his family to the home of a family member in the Princeton area. At about 3:30 a.m. he was called to say it was safe to return home.
It was all a "total shock," said Sandin.
Princeton Union-Eagle
P.O. Box 278
Princeton, MN 55371
Telephone: 763-389-1222
Fax: 763-389-1728