A judge on Friday convicted a man of stabbing his girlfriend to death and then starting a fire in her North St. Paul apartment to try to conceal the killing.

Melvin Bilbro (Courtesy of Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Ramsey County District Judge David Brown found Melvin Bilbro, 42, guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree intentional murder and first-degree arson in connection with the death of 43-year-old Shanna Renae Daniels in August 2022.

As Brown read the verdict, Daniels’ mother cried softly as family members consoled her.

“We are very happy with the verdict,” Daniels’ aunt Erica Whitaker said outside the courtroom. “And I’m just thankful that the judge looked at the evidence and found him guilty, because he definitely is a danger.”

A grand jury indicted Bilbro on the charges this past September, and he waived a jury trial. An eight-day bench trial before Brown ended Jan. 24.

At the time of the murder, Bilbro was a four-time convicted felon on intensive supervised release after serving prison time for failing to fulfill his registration requirement as a predatory offender. He was released from prison five months before the murder.

Bilbro is scheduled to be sentenced March 19.

Bloody clothes found

North St. Paul police officers and firefighters responded to the fire at Daniels’ apartment building in the 2200 block of South Avenue around 6:30 p.m. Aug. 25, 2022. Firefighters put out the blaze in Daniels’ third-floor apartment, and found her partially burned body in a bedroom.

The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office concluded that Daniels died of homicide before the fire was started in her apartment. She had multiple sharp-force injuries to her head, neck and pelvic area, as well as a perforated left eye and fractured nose. She did not have visible soot in her airway, the autopsy revealed.

Witnesses at the scene said an unidentified man was seen in Daniels’ apartment window while the fire was active. They said they had heard Daniels and her boyfriend arguing at the apartment the night before the fire, according to the criminal complaint filed against Bilbro four days after the killing.

The landlord identified Daniels’ boyfriend as Bilbro, who lived in an adjacent apartment building.

A witness said Bilbro had gone to Daniels’ apartment about 15 minutes before officers arrived on scene. Another witness saw Bilbro in Daniels’ apartment at the time of the fire.

In Daniels’ apartment, investigators found a bag with bloody items: a pack of Newport cigarettes, a pair of scissors and a folding knife with its tip broken off.

In Bilbro’s apartment, a bloody pair of shoes was found near the door. A black phone with bloodstains and a set of Daniels’ keys to her apartment were in his bedroom. A pair of sweatpants, a neon yellow work vest and a piece of paper — all with blood on them — were also found.

Daniels’ small dog — covered in soot — was in the bathroom. Blood was on the sink and at the edge of the bathtub.

Agents with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and other law enforcement officers arrested Bilbro around 4:30 a.m. the next day near a trail that led away from his apartment building. He had been sleeping in grass, and had with him a piece of paper with blood on it and Daniels’ EBT card.

In an interview with investigators, Bilbro changed his story several times, according to the complaint. He said he was just friends with Daniels, then said they had a sexual relationship. He acted surprised when told about the fire, then said he was at his apartment during the fire and walked away to smoke marijuana. He said he last saw Daniels on Aug. 23, then said Aug. 25.

“Bilbro could not explain the items in his apartment that had blood on them,” the complaint says. “Bilbro denied the blood came from (Daniels).”

Bilbro’s other past convictions were for attempted second-degree murder of his then-girlfriend and for second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving her 12-year-old daughter, both from a 2008 case; and for third-degree assault involving another girlfriend in 2019.

‘She got justice’

Daniels was a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed in April 2020, her family said Friday.

“She had just gotten her reconstruction surgery before she was murdered,” her mother, Carmencita Crowelle, said. “I told her she looked beautiful. She was so strong. It didn’t keep her down. She kept going, visited her aunts and cousins. Even in pain, she would still visit them.”

Daniels, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and grew up in North Minneapolis, liked learning new jobs, her family said. She had worked as a cosmetologist and medical assistant and more recently for a company that sold prosthetics.

Her friend Angela Young, who met Daniels in middle school, said she was always an animal lover and adored her dog, a cairn terrier. After her cancer diagnosis, during the COVID-19 pandemic, they went for walks and “talked a lot about what she was going through. She loved to be outside.”

Daniels met Bilbro a month before the killing, said her aunt, who wore a pink shirt to show support for breast cancer awareness.

“I am so happy that she got justice,” she said. “People like (Bilbro) get out and are supposed to be under supervision. It’s just really sad, because a lot of people don’t get the justice that they deserve.”

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