Anthony Skelley’s mother told the court Tuesday that she watched paramedics perform CPR on the 17-year-old in front of their South St. Paul home, and then cover him with a sheet.
It was Mother’s Day.
“It was so surreal. It was like I was in a movie,” Leah Burlingame said in her victim impact statement, which was read by Assistant Dakota County Attorney Alex Goering. “My boy is gone, and it feels like a big cosmic mistake has been made, because he should be here with me and everyone else who loved him.”
Casimir Anthony Semlak was 17 when he shot and killed Skelley during a marijuana deal on May 8, 2022. Semlak, now 20, pleaded guilty to the murder in October and was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Tuesday, with credit for just over 2½ years already served in custody.
Skelley, who suffered gunshot wounds to his head, torso and shoulder, was selling marijuana to Semlak at the time of the shooting. Officers found a BB gun in Skelley’s hand.
“The defendant went to Mr. Skelley’s home to rob him of some marijuana and instead robbed Anthony of his life,” Goering said.
Skelley was a junior at Gateway to College, a St. Paul Public Schools program at St. Paul College that allows high school students to earn college credits. Before that, he went to Two Rivers High School — formerly Henry Sibley — in Mendota Heights.
He wanted to start his own landscaping business, and enjoyed fixing cars and reselling them, his family said.
“If you knew Anthony, you knew that he had a bright future ahead of him,” his sister, Andraya Skelley, told the court. “My brother was ambitious, skilled and wanted so much out of life.”
She said she “felt a deep need to protect my brother. I was always concerned for his well-being, even before I can remember.”
Skelley was 7 years old when his father died unexpectedly while in Arizona.
“I thought I had already experienced the worst loss of my life with our dad at such a young age,” his sister said. “To lose my brother was always my worst nightmare. I always told myself it wouldn’t happen, because it shouldn’t. And when it did, it felt like my entire life had shattered. And it makes me angry every single day that he’s not here.”
Text messages led to suspect
South St. Paul police officers responded to a shots-fired report in the 1900 block of Conver Avenue around 10:42 p.m. and found Skelley lying in the street unresponsive, not breathing and without a pulse.
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Officers found a BB gun in Skelley’s hand, according to the criminal complaint, and shell casings from a 9mm gun near him. A cellphone and a small bag of marijuana were found nearby in the street.
Neighbors reported hearing gunshots and seeing a small white or silver four-door car with a damaged right taillight leaving the area at a high rate of speed. Several Ring camera videos showed portions of the incident and the car in front of Skelley’s home.
During a search of his bedroom, investigators found marijuana in several bags and jars, the complaint says.
A search of Skelley’s cellphone showed the last number called was to Semlak. It also revealed a string of texts between the two teens about the sale of marijuana. In one text, Skelley gave Semlak his home address. The last text Skelley received from Semlak read “here.”
Investigators identified Semlak as the marijuana buyer through Cash App, which was on Skelley’s phone.
Casimir Anthony Semlak (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)
Semlak was located and arrested at a St. Paul park the next day.
He was in possession of a Springfield 9mm Hellcat handgun with an inserted magazine containing several bullets. The bullets in the magazine were the same brand as the shell casings found at the scene of the shooting.
He declined to provide a statement to investigators.
‘A tragic situation both ways’
Four days after the killing, Semlak was charged by juvenile petition with three counts of murder. He was certified to stand trial as an adult in January 2023.
Semlak pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after reaching an agreement with the prosecution. The plea deal included a downward departure from state sentencing guidelines and the prison term he received Tuesday from Judge Kathryn Iverson Landrum.
The guideline sentence for Semlak, who had no previous criminal history, was a 25½-year term.
“As the court knows from the plea, this was a tragic situation both ways and this could have easily gone the other way,” his attorney, Kirk Anderson, told the court. “Mr. Semlek went there that day as a 17-year-old kid and made a very stupid decision, and he will have to live with that for the rest of his life.”
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Anderson said Semlak has “shown a ton of remorse to us that he was ever involved in this situation, and he’s wanted nothing else to try and reverse that if he possibly could.”
Semlek declined to address the court, saying: “I would just agree with my attorneys.”
Before handing down the sentence, Landrum said there are substantial and compelling reasons to support the downward departure “and that includes the incomplete self-defense” and the plea agreement.
“Mr. Semlak, one of the primary purposes of sentencing is to punish,” she said. “You deserve to be punished for what you did here. Mr. Skelley was robbed of his life, and we as a society have been robbed of everything he would have contributed to this world. His family will feel this loss forever.”
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