Charges: Drug dispute led to killing of mother in Edina
Jim Adams
Star Tribune

Published Nov 30 2001
After his mother caught him smoking crack cocaine in her Edina home, Anthony R. Szutz clubbed her and duct-taped a plastic bag over her head, according to a murder charge filed Thursday.

Neighbors told police that Barbara J. Szutz, 52, had a volatile relationship with her son and that they had heard several angry exchanges between them over the years.

It was Edina's first homicide since 1993, police said.

"This is an extremely sad and disturbing murder," Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar said. "Szutz violently attacked and then suffocated to death his own mother in the home they shared."

According to the complaint:

Police went to the house in the 5100 block of Grove Street on Monday after Barbara Szutz's employer reported her missing. They found her body covered with a sheet in the basement laundry room.

In a statement to police, Anthony Szutz, 33, said he was smoking crack in his basement bedroom last Saturday when his mother appeared and got mad at him for doing so. He struck her and taped a plastic bag around her neck, the charge said.

He stayed at the house until Monday morning. Police arrested him Tuesday evening near his aunt's house in Baxter, Minn. He led them on a chase, rammed two police cars and kept officers at bay for three hours before throwing his shotgun from his pickup and surrendering, authorities said.

The Hennepin County medical examiner's office is testing to determine the cause of death, a spokeswoman said.

Anthony Szutz was convicted of first-degree assault in 1989 for hitting two women with a baseball bat. He served about two years in state prisons and 15 months on supervised release, state records show.

He is charged with second-degree intentional murder and is being held in lieu of $750,000 bail.

You have to laugh at this, I know someone died. But this guy has to have a mullet. This is white trash extrodinare.

quote:

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After his mother caught him smoking crack cocaine in her Edina home, Anthony R. Szutz clubbed her and duct-taped a plastic bag over her head, according to a murder charge filed Thursday.

In a statement to police, Anthony Szutz, 33, said he was smoking crack in his basement bedroom last Saturday when his mother appeared and got mad at him for doing so. He struck her and taped a plastic bag around her neck, the charge said.

Anthony Szutz was convicted of first-degree assault in 1989 for hitting two women with a baseball bat. He served about two years in state prisons and 15 months on supervised release, state records show.

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