Adam Garcia now charged with Edina bus stop murder
WCCO reports that the 32-year-old Garcia has been charged with a single count, 2nd-degree (felony) murder in the Thanksgiving-eve stabbing death of 62-year-old Christian Hans Lundegaard.
Garcia remains in custody in Hennepin County jail. The attack took place at 6700 York Avenue in Edina. The complaint can be read here. Garcia is due back in court on Wednesday afternoon.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Lundegaard was related to several Star Tribune journalists, past and present. An earlier Star Tribune article on the killing included the highly misleading claim (paragraph 3) that Garcia had “a criminal history of largely nuisance crimes.”
For the past three days, I have been digging into the criminal history of Mr. Garcia, which dates back to June 2019. The tale of the tape:
- 36 separate criminal cases in 4 1/2 years
- 46 counts
- 5 felony cases
- 9 convictions (2 felony convictions, later downgraded)
- 20 skipped court dates
- 5 parole violations
- $2,646 in waived fines, $409 in unpaid fines
Two of the 36 past cases involved incidents in Edina occurring within three blocks of where Mr. Lundegaard was attacked. It turns out that Mr. Garcia is a devotee of the Blue Line light rail and is the scourge of some of the nation’s largest retail chains.
He has been convicted in 9 of the cases, with three still pending, and the rest dismissed. In late 2020, he was found incompetent to stand trial, resulting in a whole slate of case dismissals.
Of the 36 cases, none date from calendar year 2021, during which he was mostly in and out of various mental health and/or drug treatment facilities. He was pronounced cured and released.
Garcia was convicted of two felony counts involving a 2019 stabbing at a University of Minnesota library. The felony convictions were later downgraded after Garcia “successfully” completed his probation, which was ended early.
Knives and hypodermic needles make frequent appearances in police reports regarding Mr. Garcia. From a police report, here is a taste of a typical “nuisance crime,”
Yesterday, Garcia avoided a 21st skipped court date by virtue of the fact he was already in custody after the most recent Edina arrest. In court, Judge Thomas Conley heard ten (10) cases involving Garcia (but not the murder charge). Conley dismissed five of the cases but convicted Garcia in four (misdemeanor) cases. After the stays and concurrences were tallied up, Conley sentenced Garcia to a net 22 days in the workhouse. One other case was held over until January.
Another docket worth mentioning involves a different Hennepin County judge, Rachel Hughey. She signed off on a downward departure in sentencing in a 2022 felony burglary case (pled down to a gross misdemeanor).
That’s justice, in Hennepin County.