Dad learns daughter has black eyes, then shoots her boyfriend dead, Minnesota cops say
A Minnesota man has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2022 killing of his daughter’s boyfriend, according to court records.
Michael Lee Laflex, 46, of Brainerd, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole June 10 in Crow Wing County District Court, court records show.
He was found guilty by a jury of first-degree premeditated murder in April, according to court records.
McClatchy News reached out to Laflex’s attorney June 14 for comment but did not immediately hear back.
According to court records, Laflex believed his daughter was being abused by her boyfriend.
When Laflex learned his daughter’s landlord had seen her with two black eyes, he said he was going to kill him “and already had the hole dug,” according to the probable cause.
Laflex’s daughter reported her boyfriend missing Oct. 28, 2022, two days after she said he was last seen before going to her dad’s storage unit, court records show. Laflex went to the unit with her boyfriend, authorities said.
Investigators learned Laflex told a family member that he shot the boyfriend at the storage unit, moved his body with a sled, cleaned the area with bleach, and buried the body so it “would not be found,” according to court records. The man was 23, KSTP reported.
The man’s body was found in a grave site on Crow Wing County public land, investigators said.
An autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed the cause of death to be a “distant gunshot wound to the back of the head,” court records show.
Brainerd is about a 125-mile drive northwest from Minneapolis.
This story was originally published June 14, 2024 at 4:09 PM with the headline "Dad learns daughter has black eyes, then shoots her boyfriend dead, Minnesota cops say."
