VIRGINIA, Minn. — A judge has thrown out a cold case murder charge against an Iron Range man, ruling that his confession to the 1987 slaying of an elderly Virginia woman was the result of a “highly coercive” interrogation by police.
Bruce Wayne Cameron, 45, is set to be released from the St. Louis County Jail more than 16 months after authorities charged him with intentional second-degree murder in the death of 83-year-old Leona Mary Maslowski.
St. Louis County District Judge David Ackerson ruled on Friday that Cameron’s June 2015 statement to investigators — in which he confessed to assaulting Maslowski inside her Virginia apartment — was given involuntarily and in violation of his 14th Amendment right to due process.
“The detectives essentially told the Defendant what they wanted him to say and then led him into saying it,” Ackerson wrote in a 32-page order.
Defense attorneys had argued that the statement was coerced through leading questions and false promises by the investigators.
“We are happy for Mr. Cameron and his family,” Chief Public Defender Dan Lew said in an interview. “He’s sat in jail for almost a year and a half waiting for this day.”
Ackerson granted a defense motion to suppress Cameron’s statement to law enforcement, ruling that the dismissal of that evidence then left the state without probable cause to support the murder charge.
The judge ordered that Cameron be released on Oct. 31. He said he would impose conditions on Cameron’s release, allowing the state a period of time to consider an appeal.
Jim Maslowski, a son of the victim, said he received word about the ruling Monday morning.
“We’re certainly disappointed, and somewhat in disbelief,” said Maslowski, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy now living in Wichita, Kan. “I don’t know where we’re going to go from here. I don’t know if there’s a Chapter 2 to this book or not.”
Jim Maslowski said he and family never expected to see an arrest after 28 years — making Friday’s decision all that much harder to take.
“That’s life, I guess,” he said. “Everyone was optimistic for it to be finally put to rest, but now we’re back to square one.”
Prosecutor Gary Bjorklund, head of the criminal division of the St. Louis County attorney’s office in Duluth, issued a statement in response to the ruling.
“Obviously, we are disappointed with the decision,” he said. “However, it is obvious that the judge put a great deal of thought into the order. The investigation into the death of Leona Mary Maslowski remains open.”
Maslowski, a widow and lifelong resident of the Range, was found stabbed, beaten and strangled on Oct. 5, 1987, in her duplex residence at 328 Seventh St. S. Police had few leads at the time but saved all evidence from the scene in hope of someday finding a killer.
Cameron, who was 16 at the time, had been at a party in the duplex above Maslowski’s apartment the night of her death and had been interviewed by law enforcement multiple times.
The investigation turned to him last spring when he was identified as a possible suspect based on a palm print and fingerprints discovered on a kitchen door in Maslowski’s apartment.
Police said he denied involvement in an April 2015 interview, but offered the confession on June 2, 2015, when confronted with the forensic evidence.
According to court documents, he told investigators that he had entered Maslowski’s apartment, “most likely drunk” and in search of alcohol. He said he was confronted by Maslowski and punched her when he thought she was moving toward the phone. He also said he used an object to hit her in the head and possibly choked her, according to the criminal complaint.
Defense attorneys moved to suppress the statement, arguing that Cameron was led to believe that the forensic technology was enough to implicate him in Maslowski’s murder and that confessing was the only way to keep his case in juvenile court — where he would face lighter sanctions — and out of prison.
Despite his age at the time of the incident, the juvenile court lost jurisdiction over Cameron when he turned 21, requiring the matter to be handled in adult court.
Ackerson noted that the BCA agents did “well over 90 percent of the talking” in the interview and that Cameron’s answers were mostly limited to one word or one phrase, citing examples of the agents repeatedly asking Cameron if he had struck Maslowski with various blunt objects.
The judge said Cameron’s version of the events simply did not fit the established facts of Maslowski’s death and criticized the agents for attempting to “lead and steer” him into confessing.
“The only reasonable inference from the extreme leading of the Defendant by the detectives is that the Defendant’s will at that point was entirely overcome, and he was merely trying to say whatever they wanted him to that would get him the benefit of juvenile court treatment and the promise of not going to prison,” Ackerson wrote.
The judge also wrote that a mental health assessment concluded that Cameron suffers from a “mild cognitive impairment” and that he appeared to be “thoroughly intimidated and frightened by the coercive nature of the interrogation.”
Ackerson ordered Arrowhead Regional Corrections to evaluate Cameron and make recommendations for terms of his release during an appeal period.
Cameron has been held on $1 million bail since his arrest.