Murder charges were unsealed Thursday against a man with a history of alleged violent outbursts against his mother who they say beat her in her Uptown condo more than two months ago and fled to Hawaii before his arrest in Kentucky.
Nicholas D. DeRousse, 30, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with second degree intentional and unintentional murder in connection with the death of Stephanie DeRousse, 60, in mid-March at her home in the 3100 block of W. Lake. Street.
A warrant was issued for the son’s arrest, and he was captured May 18 by police 760 miles from Minneapolis at a park in Murray, Kentucky. He has been in the Calloway County Jail since noon Thursday pending extradition and his first court appearance in Hennepin. County, which has not yet been scheduled.
An autopsy by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that Stephanie DeRousse had broken ribs and bruises on her legs, neck, eyes and other parts of her head.
The cause of death, according to the charges, was “blunt trauma and strangulation with the possibility of suffocation due to [a] blanket over his head and his condition weakened by the beating”.
According to the criminal complaint, obtained Thursday by the Star Tribune from the County Attorney’s Office:
Acting in response to a welfare check request, officers entered the condo, detected a foul odor, and located Stephanie DeRousse dead on a bedroom floor. The officers looked under a blanket wrapped around her head and saw numerous injuries.
Clayton DeRousse, who was at the condo with police, told officers that his older brother, Nicholas DeRousse, no longer lived with his mother and had recently moved to Murray. He said that the last time he spoke to her mother was on March 11, when she was on vacation in Spain, but he was unable to contact her upon her return.
Video surveillance from the condominium building showed Stephanie DeRousse returning home around 8:50 p.m. on March 12 and again the following afternoon receiving a food delivery.
“This is the last time the victim is seen alive,” the complaint said.
The video also revealed Nicholas DeRousse at the condo four times between March 13 and 15 before taking a flight to Denver and then a connecting flight to Los Angeles. Two days later, he was on a plane to Hawaii. The complaint did not address his return to the continental United States.
First in June 2017 and again in April 2018, Stephanie DeRousse petitioned the court for protection orders against Nicholas DeRousse, alleging outbursts directed at her that at times turned violent.
Both petitions said that Stephanie DeRousse called the police at least twice about her son’s behavior. Court records show no charges were filed in connection with the mother’s allegations, although he was arrested in April 2018, charged and convicted of a felony misdemeanor for resisting officers who came to the condo to enforce one of the warrants. of protection.
In the first filing, Stephanie DeRousse said that on June 13, 2017, her son was “acting paranoid and agitated and seeing things.” She said he got mad because she gave her son a grilled cheese sandwich. She said he called her vulgar names, hurt her wrist while grabbing her, and prevented her from leaving the condo they shared.
Two weeks earlier, she continued the presentation, she said her son “began to shake violently [a] bat around. [He said] his father and brother are coming from St. Louis to take his son away.”
She withdrew the protection request a few days later, explaining in the second request: “I believed her that she was going to get help and become a better person.”
The second petition followed a series of incidents in 2018 that spanned nearly two weeks until April 10, when she alleged her son soiled her bed, spilled bleach on her clothes and suspected she had stolen $20,000 worth of jewelry.
