A 41-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday in Ramsey County to killing two women, who’d been missing and whose dismembered remains were later found in separate storage units.

Joseph Steven Jorgenson had been in a romantic relationship with Manijeh “Mani” Starren, 33, and earlier with Fanta Xayavong, 33. Their remains were found separately in 2023.

Manijeh “Mani” Starren, left, and Fanta Xayavong (Courtesy photos)

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged Jorgenson with Starren’s murder in St. Paul in 2023 and charged him Thursday with Xayavong’s murder in Shoreview. He was in court Thursday and pleaded guilty to intentional murder of both women.

He is facing a 40-year sentence in each case, to be served at the same time.

Starren’s father reported her missing to police on May 1, 2023, after she last had contact with her family around April 21. Police found her remains in a Woodbury storage facility in late June 2023.

While police were investigating Starren’s disappearance, law enforcement received a tip about Xayavong being missing. They learned she’d last been heard from around July 2021 and was last seen with Jorgenson.

Law enforcement determined that Jorgenson had been living in a home on Fernwood Street in Shoreview at the time. Officers discovered messages between Jorgenson and another person around the time of Xayavong’s disappearance that he’d broken his hand by hitting Xayavong in the back of the head, according to the newly filed criminal complaint.

Multiple people reported they’d visited Jorgenson’s home between July and September 2021 and the house smelled “terrible,” the complaint said. When Jorgenson moved, a cleaning crew videotaped the property and saw the bedroom carpet, including carpet pad, had been removed and there was a large stain remaining on the wooden floorboards.

Law enforcement brought cadaver dogs to the residence during a search warrant, and the dogs “alerted” to areas in the bedroom and garage. Investigators determined that Jorgenson started using a storage unit in Coon Rapids. On July 6, 2023, law enforcement carried out a search warrant and found human remains at the storage unit that were identified as Xayavong.

Joseph Steven Jorgenson (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Xayavong’s hands were found bound behind her back and a storage tote in the unit contained multiple knives, including two believed to have been used on Xayavong, the complaint said. Her cause of death was determined to be “multiple sharp and blunt force injuries” and was classified as a homicide.

In a statement, Jorgenson said he’d intentionally killed Xayavong and that he believed it happened around Labor Day 2021 “but was unsure of the exact timing due to substance use,” the complaint said. Jorgenson said in court Thursday that he “was very drunk at the time” that he assaulted Xayavong. He struck her directly in the head with his knee, the complaint said.

Jorgenson is scheduled to be sentenced in February and remains in custody. The sentences are upward departures due to three aggravating factors in each case — that Jorgenson killed a romantic partner, that it happened in the victim’s home in each case, and that he dismembered the body in an attempt to hide what he’d done.

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