Inset: Landon Terrance Tuomala (St. Louis County Jail). Background: The Aurora, Minn., street where Tuomala tried to kill his father’s girlfriend (Google Maps).
A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to shoot and kill his father’s girlfriend with a rifle.
Landon Terrance Tuomala, 24, was found guilty earlier this week of one count of attempted second-degree murder with intent, but without premeditation. Judge Michelle Anderson convicted him after a stipulated evidence trial, the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office announced.
The case moved quickly to sentencing, with Anderson ordering Tuomala to serve 120 months behind bars. The sentence was below the 173 months recommended under Minnesota state guidelines, a downward departure prosecutors opposed.
The shooting incident happened on Aug. 26, 2024, at a home on East Third Avenue South in Aurora, a small Iron Range mining community about 60 miles north of Duluth.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by Superior, Wisconsin-based NBC affiliate KBJR and Chisholm, Minnesota-based CBS affiliate KRII, which jointly operate as Northern News Now, dispatchers first received a 911 call reporting an unseen woman yelling, “Call 911.”
Moments later, authorities said, Tuomala called 911 himself and reported that he had just shot someone, while also telling dispatchers he was no longer armed.
When East Range Police Department officers arrived, they learned Tuomala had fired a .30-30 lever-action rifle at the woman after she entered the home she shared with him and his father.
While walking inside the house just before 7 p.m., the woman saw the defendant training his weapon on her, so she turned around and ran, police said. In the fraught moments that fast ensued, the woman screamed for someone to call 911, and then, luckily, tripped and fell just as the bullet fired from the weapon sailed over her body.
As police arrived, Tuomala exited the house with his hands raised, still believing he had shot the woman, police said. The defendant said the victim got up and ran away after the shot was fired.
Other officers found the woman “visibly upset and shaking” in a nearby pickup truck. She had been escorted to safety by neighbors who said they heard a “ba-boom” sound followed by screams, according to court documents obtained by the Duluth News Tribune.
Later on, the woman recounted the events to law enforcement. She said she could not remember if Tuomala said anything as the long gun was pointed at her, just that she ran. Then, after she tripped and fell just in time, she got up to find the defendant still pointing the gun at her.
“[The] victim said she was terrified and thought she was going to die,” police wrote in the charging document.
The defendant told police he called 911 after he saw the victim fall to the ground in front of his father’s house.
Police later found a bullet in a neighboring home.
The victim told police Tuomala had recently moved in with her and his father after being told to leave two different treatment facilities.
During the bench trial, the judge determined the defendant did not have a mental illness defense, but justified the sentencing departure based on his lack of substantial capacity for judgment and a mental or physical impairment when the shooting occurred, prosecutors said.
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