Prosecutors appoint grand jury in fatal Moorhead stabbing; woman claims she acted in self-defense – InForum

MOORHEAD – In an unusual move in state court, a grand jury was convened and indicted 48-year-old Connie Jo Frank on charges of first-degree murder in the death of Willard DeGroat, who was stabbed to death in a home in central Moorhead in the early morning hours of Aug. 4.

Frank, who dated DeGroat on and off for the past five years, told police “someone had to end it” and she “would kill him again,” according to the original complaint. She made her first appearance in Clay County District Court on Aug. 6 on a second-degree murder charge.

At a videoconference hearing on Thursday, August 29, Frank's attorney, longtime public defender Steve Bergeson, told the judge that Frank would plead self-defense in the case and later filed a motion to that effect.

Bergeson also filed a motion to obtain a copy of the grand jury transcript, which addressed a criminal procedure rule that “grounds may exist for a motion to dismiss indictment based on matters before the grand jury.”

The decision by Clay County prosecutors to convene a grand jury in Frank's case came as a surprise to several experienced criminal defense lawyers, who said the most common reason for doing so was to seek a more serious charge of first-degree murder, a charge that only a grand jury can bring in Minnesota.

While the lawyers the forum spoke to clarified that they were not privy to the details or evidence in Frank's case, they expressed shock at the decision to seek a grand jury indictment in the case.

“It's not very often that a grand jury is convened and ends up not indicting for first-degree murder,” said Luke Heck of the Vogel Law Firm. “It wouldn't make much sense to convene a grand jury just to confirm the second-degree murder indictment that was already indicted.”

Bruce Ringstrom Jr. of the criminal defense firm Ringstrom DeKrey agreed that it was an unusual step, adding that convening a grand jury would require a significant amount of additional time and resources.

He said prosecutors typically have four reasons for convening a grand jury in murder cases: to obtain an indictment for premeditated murder, to provide political cover for the office in sensitive cases that are in the public spotlight, to use it as evidence in cases with reluctant witnesses and to try to determine whether someone should be charged at all.

“Why did they do it here? You have to keep in mind that we have not seen the evidence in this case. All we have is a copy of the original complaint, which is a statement of probable cause and is not proof,” Ringstrom said.

He said it's possible prosecutors felt Frank should be charged with premeditated murder, “but on the surface, this is reminiscent of a case of battered wife syndrome. You sense that the story starts with the complaint that this woman was abused for years, that this was an act of anticipated self-defense, that this woman probably grew up as a victim of repeated abuse in all kinds of ways. Her panic response and her reaction to abuse is fundamentally different from most other people.”

“If a grand jury is convened and indicts her on exactly the same thing that the government is accusing her of, then the government can say, 'Look, a grand jury of peers has decided this is appropriate,'” Ringstrom said.

Frank appeared for Thursday's hearing remotely from the Clay County Jail.

Judge Tammy Merkins has been assigned the case in Clay County District Court. A hearing to rule on the various motions filed in the case has not yet been scheduled.