Ten months after Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies killed a man in Vadnais Heights, his family is still searching for answers.
According to authorities, Darren Robert Jahnke, 47, was fatally shot after struggling with officers and disarming one of them in an RV in April 2017.
Jahnke’s family is demanding that the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office release his body without conditions, that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension release the results of its investigation and that the officers involved be prosecuted.
“We are frozen in a state of perpetual grief and anger. Our family is imprisoned by our emotions. My mom is broken, destroyed by the loss of her son,” Jahnke’s sister Jenny Vance said Tuesday. “My brother is gone, and we don’t know why.”
BCA officials said they finished an investigation and in January turned it over to the Ramsey County attorney’s office for review.
“The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office notified the BCA on April 19 that it had identified a relative of Mr. (Jahnke) — his sister Jenny. The BCA contacted Jenny that day to notify her of his death and has been in regular communication with her since then,” the BCA said in a written statement.
Vance said her communication with the BCA and the medical examiner’s office has been one-sided and irregular.
On Tuesday morning, the medical examiner’s office said the body could be released.
A spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office said she did not realize the family had been trying to access the body. She added that 10 months is not an abnormally long time for a body to be held during an investigation.
The spokeswoman said the family wanted to cremate the body, which means it is typically held for a longer period of time. Vance said they originally wanted to cremate to honor the wishes of Jahnke, but in November the family decided to request the body for a funeral and their own autopsy.
“I really miss my son. I loved him so much,” Jahnke’s mother Ann Jahnke said. “Darren should be alive. And I want his body back.”
The Ramsey County attorney’s office is reviewing the case after it was investigated by the BCA.