MINNIAPOLIS – A couple has been charged in connection to a shooting outside a supervised parenting center in Minneapolis.
Timothy Amacher, 41, of St. Paul, and 24-year-old Colleen Larson, of St. Paul, both face attempted premeditated first-degree murder charges for shooting a female victim as she went to pick up her child at the supervised parenting center. Amacher also faces one count of aiding an offender and being an accomplice after the fact.
The female victim and Amacher are the parents of the child. She has full custody due to court orders limiting his visitations of their child to supervised contact only. At the time of the shooting, Amacher was with the child waiting for the mother.
In addition, Larson and Amacher are in a relationship. Both are scheduled to make their first appearance May 3 at 1:30 p.m.
According to the criminal complaint, on April 20 just after 7:30 p.m., the female victim was outside of her vehicle in the parking lot when Larson came up to her and fired multiple shots at close range. The female victim was struck in the neck and right forearm.
Larson then ran off.
A witness who was helping the victim informed police when they arrived of where the shooting occurred. There they found three discharged gun cartridge cases on the ground.
The victim was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center and was treated for the injuries she sustained. She remains hospitalized, but is expected to survive, the complaint states.
When investigators spoke with staff at the supervised parental center familiar with Amacher and the female victim’s relationship, they said it was possible that Larson was the shooter, the complaint says.
Surveillance footage from the parking lot showed Larson in a 2022 black Dodge Ram—which belongs to Amacher—park and wait for the victim to exit her car. When she does, Larson, dressed entirely in black, and donning gloves and a mask, gets out and sneaks up behind her, with her gun raised, the complaint continues. The shooting occurred off camera, but a witness told investigators they heard multiple gunshots. Surveillance footage also revealed that Larson had been casing the facility prior to the victim’s arrival.
When investigators spoke with Amacher about who may have shot the victim, he suggested that it was related to her occupation as a forensic scientist at the Minneapolis Police Department. Police also inquired about the vehicles he owned, and did not acknowledge the Dodge Ram, the complaint states.
Amacher is the owner of four vehicles, including the Jeep he drove to the family center.
During the investigation, officers obtained a search warrant for GPS data on the Dodge Ram, and compared cell phone location data of Amacher and Larson on the day of the shooting. They found that Amacher and Larson swapped vehicles three hours prior to the incident in White Bear Lake where his business is located, the complaint says. Afterwards, Amacher drove to the parenting center, and Larson eventually went there as well.
Investigators spoke with Amacher again on April 28, and showed him stills from the surveillance footage of the Dodge Ram. He denied the vehicle being his for a variety of spurious reasons, all of which were discredited over the course of the investigation. Larson also spoke with police on the same day, and denied any involvement, stating she was at her home in St. Paul when the shooting happened, the complaint states.
Additional information investigators gathered concerned the victim and Amacher’s relationship which was wrought with domestic violence, stalking, and harassment. From 2019 through 2022, Amacher made numerous false claims that the victim and her boyfriend were abusing the child, the complaint says. A social worker told police that the five-year-old said he was instructed by Amacher to lie about the abuse.
Investigators found that in February 2022, Amacher asked a friend of his to kill the victim for $50,000.
