A St. Paul man was given a 20-year prison term Monday for stabbing to death a man who was released from prison earlier in the day.

Dwight David Ford, 49, pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to second-degree unintentional murder while committing a felony for killing 41-year-old Christopher Shawndale Pryor at an apartment building in the city’s North End on June 13, 2022.

Prosecutors sought a 24-year prison sentence for Ford, who will receive credit for 934 days already served in custody.

Dwight David Ford (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

In an interview with investigators, Ford said he and his girlfriend, who worked as a prostitute, were smoking crack at the apartment in the 100 block of Winnipeg Avenue throughout the day. He said they set up a “trick” with Pryor, where the woman agreed to perform sexual acts for money and crack, the criminal complaint says.

After the “trick,” according to Ford, Pryor told them he was missing $120 and he accused the woman of stealing the money. Ford said an argument broke out and his girlfriend “started to look scared,” the complaint states. Ford said he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and he and Pryor fought in the bathroom.

He said he stabbed Pryor two to three times.

Victim’s sister heard argument

Pryor’s sister, Antoinette Townsend, told the court Monday that she saw her brother the day he was killed. Court records show Pryor was released from prison that day and placed in supervised probation as part of a 29-month sentence for burglary out of Dakota County in 2020.

Townsend said she told her brother “that everything has changed” since he went into prison, that “people will do anything for money … so you have be strong.”

She said she gave Pryor a cellphone to use. Later that day, Townsend returned a call he had made asking her to pick him up at the apartment. When he answered the phone, she heard him arguing with a man over money and a woman screaming in the background.

“It was like I was a fly on the wall,” Townsend said. “I was on the phone the whole time with him when everything was happening.”

When Townsend arrived at the apartment building, a woman who was leaving told her that two men had been fighting and one was stabbed, according to the complaint. Townsend found her brother with stab wounds to his abdomen, and medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

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“It’s very sad,” Townsend said. “And I don’t want to wish this on anybody to go through or witness, because I feel like a lot of people don’t deserve what happens to them. It’s about the choices you make and the decisions you make.”

As part of a plea agreement that Ford reached with Ramsey County prosecutors, three other felony charges in the case were dismissed at sentencing: second-degree intentional murder, soliciting or inducing an individual to practice prostitution and sex-trafficking of an individual.

Ford’s prior criminal history includes convictions for kidnapping, terroristic threats, first-degree criminal sexual conduct with injury/force, third-degree criminal sexual conduct, second-degree aggravated robbery and escape from custody. At the time of the killing, he was considered a non-compliant predatory offender with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.