Anger and grief mixed with tears in a federal courtroom in St. Paul Wednesday during the sentencing hearing of the woman who illegally bought guns for her boyfriend, which he used to fatally ambush three Burnsville first responders.
Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, 37, was sentenced to three years and nine months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release.
Dyrdahl pleaded guilty in January to straw purchasing the two firearms that Shannon Gooden wielded when he killed Officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand and Firefighter/Paramedic Adam Finseth on Feb. 18, 2024.
The maximum federal sentence for straw purchasing is 15 years in prison for each charge, and relatives of the victims asked U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to impose the longest sentence he could.
Because Dyrdahl didn’t have a previous history of felony criminal activity, the sentencing guidelines recommended a shorter sentence.
In this case, the guidelines were for a prison term of 2½ years to three years and one month, followed by one to three years of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney’s Office asked for a prison term of 3 years and 5 months and Dyrdahl’s attorney requested a term of 1 year and 1 day in prison.
Photos of Burnsville police officers, from left, Paul Elmstrand, Matthew Ruge and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth are displayed during a community vigil Feb. 20, 2024, at the Burnsville Police Department/City Hall. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)
Dyrdahl, who has been out of custody since her arrest last year, was handcuffed in the courtroom and U.S. Marshals took her into custody Wednesday afternoon.
When Dyrdahl purchased the two murder weapons in January 2024, weeks before Gooden fired more than 100 rounds at the first responders, she was “fully aware that Gooden was prohibited from possessing firearms,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing about their sentencing recommendation. “Indeed, she purchased the weapons for Gooden because he could not — the law prohibited him from doing so, for good reason.”
Gooden, 38, had a lifetime ban on possessing firearms because of a felony second-degree assault case, which he pleaded guilty to in 2008.
The incident began when Burnsville police were dispatched to a home in the 12600 block of 33rd Avenue South, which Dyrdahl rented, about 2 a.m. Feb. 18, 2024, on a report of possible child sexual abuse, according to the filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office about its sentencing recommendation.
Gooden barricaded himself in a bedroom, “effectively taking the children hostage,” the filing said. There were seven children in the home, ages 5 to 15 — three were Gooden’s from a previous relationship, two were Dyrdahl’s, and two were Gooden’s and Dyrdahl’s together.
“After hours of negotiation, Gooden told law enforcement he would come out peacefully; instead, he opened fire,” the court filing continued.
Ruge and Elmstrand were both 27. Finseth was 40. Gooden also shot and wounded Burnsville police Sgt. Adam Medlicott.
Medlicott said in court on Wednesday that he’d been shot twice, it took seven months for him to be able to sleep through the night and he had to explain to his children what happened. “Yet I’m the lucky one,” he said, adding that he lives with a “terrible burden.”
Ashley Anne Dyrdahl in a 2017 booking photo. (Courtesy of the St. Louis Park Police Department)
Prosecutors wrote of Gooden, who died by suicide: “He was violent and dangerous. Dyrdahl knew all too well Gooden’s penchant for erratic violence. By her own admission, Dyrdahl lived in grave fear of Gooden’s volatile and violent behavior. Over the course of just five months in 2024, the defendant gave this dangerous man at least five firearms. She handed him the means to murder, literally placing these combat weapons in his hands.”
It was up to U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to decide Dyrdahl’s sentence, and he was not bound by the sentencing guidelines.
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