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Bradley Allen Weyaus (Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office).
A man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for killing another who he believed was dealing fatal drugs.
Bradley Allen Weyaus has confessed to the murder of Rodney Pendegayosh Jr., 25, as revealed in a press statement from prosecutors in Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. His sentencing is set for July 24, with the terms of his plea agreement playing a significant role in determining his sentence.
Per the agreement, Weyaus will serve a prison term ranging from 25 years and six months to 30 years and seven months. His co-defendant, girlfriend Alexis Marion Elling, admitted guilt in February 2024 to aiding an offender, with her sentencing delayed until Weyaus’ case concluded. She consented to testify against Weyaus in return for a suspended sentence of five years in prison and up to five years of supervised probation.
Authorities have said that the defendants, a couple, believed that Pendegayosh dealt Elling’s brother a fatal mixture of fentanyl and meth.
Their crime was anything but typical.
“This entire scenario is exceedingly strange,” remarked Mille Lacs County Sheriff Kyle Burton during a news conference when charges were filed. “This body was relocated to various locations over what might have been a week before it was finally discovered.”
A public works maintenance crew that was cleaning garbage discovered Pendegayosh’s remains stuffed into a tote bag along a snowy highway in March 2023.
“They see what they believe to be a severed human foot,” the sheriff said. They closed the tote and called the police.
An officer on the way to the scene spotted a suspect vehicle, a white Saturn believed to be driven by Weyaus. Weyaus fled, and for a time, eluded capture. The officer eventually found the vehicle empty but stuck in a driveway. The homeowners pointed out the suspect hiding in a camper trailer on the property. The arrest ensued. In a duffel bag on Wayaus’s person, authorities discovered a hacksaw, hammer, and black tape similar to the tape found on the tote.
Other evidence pointed toward the couple. There was a spent shotgun shell in the suspect vehicle, although apparently no gun. Investigators found a bloody carpet, gloves, and a hardware store receipt in the dumpster at the apartment where the suspect lived — as well as Pendegayosh’s ID and credit card.
The sheriff said surveillance video shows the suspects carrying the tote bag out of the apartment and loading it into a black Chevrolet Impala a few days before police discovered the body.
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