A second man charged in the robbery and killing of 22-year-old Alex Becker near his St. Paul home in December is also accused of an unrelated carjacking in the Merriam Park neighborhood less than three weeks earlier.

Ramsey County prosecutors charged Detwan Cortell Allen with kidnapping and first-degree aggravated robbery last week. Allen’s DNA was found in a Porsche that he and his co-defendant, Arteze Owen Kinerd, stole from a 56-year-old man at gunpoint Dec. 9 in St. Paul, the criminal complaint says.

Detwan Cortell Allen (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Kinerd was charged with the same two offenses the same day he was charged in Becker’s killing.

Allen, 19, of St. Paul, Kinerd, 20, of Minneapolis and Shaun Lamar Travis, 25, of Brooklyn Park, all face aiding and abetting second-degree murder in the ambush killing of Becker, who was walking home from work on the city’s North End just before midnight Dec. 27. Becker was shot six times in his alley. Police found seven 9-mm shell casings near his body.

Travis waived his right to a jury trial, and a court trial before Ramsey County District Judge JaPaul Harris began Oct. 25 and is ongoing.

Allen and Kinerd have also pleaded not guilty in Becker’s murder. Allen has a jury trial set to begin Dec. 4, while Kinerd’s is scheduled for Feb. 26. Prosecutors have filed motions in court of their intent to introduce the kidnapping and robbery at both trials “for the purpose(s) of motive, knowledge, identity and common scheme or plan.”

Carjacked Porsche

According to the criminal complaints, the Merriam Park man told police two men wearing hoodies and ski masks carjacked him while he sat in his Porsche Cayenne in the 1700 block of Hague Avenue.

He said one man, who was shorter than the other, brandished a silver short-nosed revolver with a “fake pearl handgrip” during the robbery. They went through his pockets, taking his phone, Apple watch and wallet. They had him unlock his phone, and asked for his phone PIN.

They ordered him into the back seat of the Porsche, with the shorter man driving and the other man on the phone. The taller man wore blue latex gloves as made monetary transactions on the man’s phone. At one point, the victim told police, the taller man pulled his face mask below his chin, allowing him to get a look at his face.

After the driver crashed the car along Fairview Avenue in St. Paul, the victim was forced out and told to walk away and to not call police or they would find him and kill him. The man ran to his home and called police. “(He) truly thought he was going to die,” the complaint says.

He later reported that three fraudulent transactions totaling $2,450 had been made on Dec. 9.

DNA on car

Surveillance video captured near the scene of Becker’s killing showed a sedan appeared to be a 2015-17 Toyota Camry. Officers learned a 2017 Camry had been stolen from Brooklyn Center the night before the killing.

Alex Becker, 22, was pronounced dead on Dec. 28, 2022, after he was found shot in an alley in the 500 block of West Lawson Avenue in St. Paul. (Courtesy of the family)

Officers found the car Jan. 2 along Logan Avenue in North Minneapolis, three blocks from a Penn Avenue apartment building. It was the same apartment where a cellphone that was taken in a recent home invasion robbery in St. Paul pinged during an investigation. Kinerd lived in the building with his girlfriend.

Investigators learned that three men had left the apartment building less than two hours before the shooting and that they wore the same distinct clothing as the men who followed Becker into the alley. Surveillance video showed them returning to the apartment about a half-hour after the killing.

When Kinerd was arrested at Penn Gas Stop near his apartment on Jan. 3, he had the murder weapon with him, the complaints say.

Officers executed a search warrant on him apartment and recovered two magazines loaded with 9-mm ammunition, an Omega .22-caliber short revolver with an ivory handle, and clothing that matched what one of the other men wore the night of the killing. They also found a debit card taken during the Dec. 9 kidnapping and robbery, according to the complaint in that case.

Later, the kidnapping victim picked Kinerd out of a photo lineup as the man whose face he had seen that night. When shown a photo of the revolver recovered from Kinerd’s apartment, he said “it looked similar” to the one used in the kidnapping and robbery, the complaints say.

Allen’s DNA was found on the Porsche’s inside driver’s side door handle and elsewhere, last week’s complaint says, adding that he is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and matches the description of the shorter robber.

Allen made a first appearance in court on the new charges Tuesday. He remains jailed in lieu of $1.25 million bail.

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