Father And Son Arrested In Quadruple SUV Cornfield Slaying In Wisconsin

Update: The Dunn County Sheriff's Office announced Friday that Antoine Darnique Suggs was taken into custody in Maricopa County, Arizona.

A Minnesota father and his son have been identified as suspects in the murders of four people, whose bodies were recovered from an SUV in a Wisconsin cornfield last weekend. 

Darren Lee McWright, 56, and Antoine Darnique Suggs, 37, are accused in the quadruple slaying of four Saint Paul area residents, officials announced Thursday.

McWright was taken into custody by St. Paul Police Department on Wednesday after warrants were issued for the two men. He’s being held in the Ramsey County Jail. 

Suggs was still at large. He’s believed to still be in Minneapolis or St. Paul. By Friday afternoon, however, investigators were confident they were closing in on the wanted man.

"We're hoping Suggs is in custody by the end of the day," Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd told Oxygen.com.

Suggs should be considered to be armed and dangerous, authorities said.

"We certainly believe that one of them could be responsible for the homicide," Bygd said, KMSP-TV reported.

On Sept. 12, the bodies of Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30; Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26; Loyace Foreman III, 35; and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, were found in a vehicle abandoned in a cornfield near the rural township of Sheridan, Wisconsin. A local farmer, who discovered the bodies, tipped off emergency dispatchers. 

Flug-Presley, Pettus, Foreman III, and Sturm all suffered fatal gunshot wounds, according to preliminary autopsies. Authorities suspect all four had been killed in the span of 24 hours. Two of the victims were a brother and sister, officials said. The other two deceased individuals are believed to have been in a romantic relationship. They’d been at a bar together in St. Paul shortly before their deaths, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

It’s unknown where the group was killed or how their bodies wound up across state lines. From the investigation’s early stages, Wisconsin authorities speculated the quadruple murder wasn’t connected to the area. Sheridan township is about 70 miles northeast of the Twin Cities.

"We can’t find any connection to this area other than possibly randomly driving out of the Twin Cities," Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd previously told reporters during a press conference in Menomonie, Wisconsin on Tuesday. "It's highly unusual for this area. ... We can’t suspect somebody locally of randomly killing four people from the Twin Cities.”

Jasmine Sturm, Matthew Pettus, Nitosha Flug-Presley and Loyace Foreman III Photo: Facebook

Authorities now believe the killings may have occurred in St. Paul. Detectives are currently reviewing surveillance footage of cameras located along Interstate 94.

"We look at cameras in St. Paul, all the way down 94, coming in from Stillwater so we look at all those options," Bygd said.

McWright and Suggs knew the group, according to investigators.

"My understanding is they all kind of grew up in the same neighborhood and knew each other, families knew each other," Bygd said.

An alleged motive also hasn’t been determined.

“That one is a mystery,” Bygd said.

No further information was released by law enforcement.

The FBI's Minnesota field office is also working the investigation in conjunction with local authorities. Kevin Smith, a spokesperson for the bureau, also declined to comment on the ongoing investigation this week, citing agency policy.

McWright is being held without bond at a St. Paul detention center. He has a number of past arrests in Minnesota on prior charges, including assault, driving while intoxicated, disorderly conduct, and fugitive from justice, according to jail records. He’s scheduled to appear in a city court on third-degree assault charges on Oct. 12.

Anyone with information related to the case or Suggs’ whereabouts is urged to contact Dunn County Sheriff’s Office at 715-232-1348.