‘No Name Given’ goes on fatal NYE rampage in Windom bar
A 26-year-old man is charged with 2nd-degree murder for an incident at a Windom, MN, bar a few minutes before midnight on Tuesday, New Year’s Eve.
The alleged perpetrator is listed in court records as “No Name Given Happy” and is billed out of San Diego, California. An a/k/a of “George Samuel” also appears in a court document.
Windom police report that the defendant’s name is as it appears on a commercial driver’s license issued by the State of California found in the defendant’s semi-truck.
Happy is charged with four felonies for the knife attack that resulted in one fatality and two injuries. The attack occurred at 11:45 pm at the Phat Pheasant Pub in Windom. The police report states that Happy had been ejected from the bar, twice, earlier in the evening.
His Cottonwood County mugshot:
As shown above, the defendant suffered some harm in the melee and spent some time in the hospital prior to his first court appearance today. He’s being held on $750,000 bail. The court has denied his request for a public defender.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that Benjamin Matter has been identified as the deceased.
In court records, no race is listed for the defendant. However, a witness to the fracas is quoted as describing the defendant as “a Hispanic guy.”
As disturbing as all of the above may be, even more disturbing is the implication that the State of California would issue a valid CDL without even taking down the applicant’s name. An undocumented document, if you will.
The presence of the semi in the bar parking lot, with California plates, suggests that Mr. Happy (or Mr. Samuel, or whatever his name may be, if any) has been driving a large vehicle, cross-country, officially anonymous.
If you’d hoped that this was a one-time occurrence, you’d be out of luck. A reader sent me this Fox-26 TV (Fresno) report from last month. More fatalities, another dodgy California ID:
The suspected DUI driver in a crash that killed a woman in Clovis was listed on his CA ID as 19-year-old FNU Himanshu, with FNU standing for “First Name Unknown”.
The FOX 26 reporter adds:
We were told his ID also did not list any of the usual descriptors such as height, weight or eye color.
To be clear, his ID was not a driver’s license, just an official identification card issued by the state.
In a follow-up story earlier this week, FOX 26 reports that a 2nd victim succumbed to his injuries from that same Clovis, CA, car crash.
The Orange County Register has an explainer on the phenomenon. NNG or FNU/LNU are supposed to apply only in situations where a person truly has but a single legally documented name (some cultures do this). That explanation does not appear to apply in the two cases documented above.
Back in Minnesota, Happy’s next court appearance is scheduled for January 14.