A Hopkins man accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend over the weekend at their Hopkins home, claiming he shot the victim while clearing his gun, has been charged with murder.
Krystofer Patrick Brooks, 20, was charged on Jan. 6 in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter in connection with the death of 19-year-old Skylar Kathleen Kiehl in an apartment in the 1300 block of Cambridge Street just before 3:30 p.m.
Search warrant affidavits filed in court cleared the way for police to seize evidence from the apartment including a handgun, a spent bullet, blood and various recreational drugs.
According to a criminal complaint, Brooks called 911 to report that he had shot his girlfriend of two years in the head. First responders found the victim shot in the eye, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Brooks told police the shooting happened while he followed his "normal routine" to make sure his gun was empty, pulling back the slide to check there wasn't a round in the chamber and "pulling the trigger a few times" while aiming at the windows across the apartment, the complaint states. Brooks said he turned toward his girlfriend and pulled the trigger again "to be sure it was unloaded," and the gun fired as she sat up in bed.
According to the complaint, Brooks said he loaded a magazine into the gun the night before the shooting because he had heard gunfire outside his apartment building. He said he had taken a THC edible that night and was unsure if he had removed the magazine from the gun before going to bed.
The officers found the gun, its hammer cocked, on a chair next to the bed. It had a loaded magazine inside and a round in the chamber. Brooks has a state-issued permit to carry a firearm in public and went through gun safety classes within the past year.
Brooks, who has been in jail since the shooting, is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail ahead of a court appearance on Jan. 7.
