Left inset: Tabitha Trescott and Justin Reinarts (GoFundMe). Right inset: Randy Zimmerman (Brown County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Minnesota home where Randy Zimmerman broke in and shot his former girlfriend, Tabitha Trescott, and her new boyfriend, Justin Reinarts (KARE/YouTube).
A Minnesota man has been sentenced to prison after breaking into his former girlfriend’s home and fatally shooting her and her new boyfriend with a shotgun while they were inside.
“I truly am sorry,” Randy Zimmerman, 46, said Monday as he received two consecutive life sentences for the November 2025 killings of Tabitha Trescott, 32, and Justin Reinarts, 50, local CBS affiliate KEYC reports.
Zimmerman pleaded guilty in August to two counts of first-degree murder, including murder with intent while committing a felony and murder committed during domestic abuse involving a prior pattern of abuse. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the premeditated murder charges.
“A lot of weight is off of our family’s shoulders. We can sleep knowing that justice has been served,” Terri Smith, Trescott’s mother, told KEYC.
Zimmerman shot Trescott and Reinarts at about 4:20 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2025. Brown County authorities were alerted by a 911 call from one of Trescott’s two children, who reported that his mother’s ex-boyfriend had broken into the home and shot her, according to the sheriff’s office press release.
Investigators found two spent shotgun shells in the upstairs bedroom where the couple was killed. Both Trescott and Reinarts died from gunshot wounds to the head. Several children were inside the house when the shooting occurred.
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“I gave you a chance,” Zimmerman allegedly told his former girlfriend shortly before opening fire, according to her son’s account cited in a criminal complaint obtained by Minnesota NBC affiliate KARE.
The child said he had been asleep when he woke to someone yelling profanities inside the home. After going to investigate, he encountered Zimmerman in the hallway outside his bedroom. Zimmerman allegedly pointed a shotgun at him and ordered him to return to his room.
After the shootings, Zimmerman fled the Brown County residence and drove into Iowa, where he allegedly fired at a sheriff’s deputy during a high-speed pursuit. “He pulled a shotgun out of the window during the chase and fired one shot backwards at our deputy,” Louisa County Sheriff Brandon Marquardt told Law&Crime last year.
Iowa officers arrested Zimmerman after using a police maneuver to force his vehicle into a ditch before pursuing him across a field, authorities said. “He was chased … and tasered,” Marquardt said.
Zimmerman remained at large for 12 hours before he was captured in Louisa County, Iowa.
At Monday’s sentencing, he received credit for the 345 days he had already spent in custody.
“If you’re in this kind of situation, please don’t think you can ever change that person, because you cannot,” Smith told KEYC. “No matter how many times they say, ‘I’m sorry, it will never happen again,’ that ‘I’m sorry, it will never happen again’ is their way of saying it will be worse the next time around.”
