After with plea withdrawal and subsequent conviction, man gets life for slaying on Iron Range trail

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HIBBING, Minn. — When Deshon Israel Bonnell was first sentenced nearly five years ago, it was supposed to provide some closure for the family of Joshua Lavalley.

Deshon Israel Bonnell (St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office)

Bonnell had, after all, admitted to fatally shooting the Aurora man, and his agreement to plead guilty provided a relatively quick resolution to the court process without subjecting Lavalley’s family to a trial.

That was until Bonnell successfully appealed his own guilty plea — reopening old wounds and forcing the victim’s family to endure a multiweek trial last month.

“I pray that we never have to do this again,” Lavalley’s sister, Joann Vergoth, said Tuesday. “I pray that he gets to spend the rest of his life behind bars — a sentence he didn’t have to have, but one he surely deserves.”

Had Bonnell, 23, stood by his original plea, he would have had an opportunity to petition for parole after 30 years in prison. But his decision to recant the confession and face a jury sealed his fate: He is now expected to die in prison.

St. Louis County District Judge Rachel Sullivan imposed a life term without the possibility of parole — a mandatory sentence for his premeditated first-degree murder conviction.

It was a fitting consequence as far as Lavalley’s family was concerned. Having lived with the trauma for more than five years, they spoke in scathing terms about the defendant.

“I hope Bonnell eventually regrets the day that he destroyed so many people’s lives and can be as miserable as he makes the rest of us,” said Jonni Tracy, another sister of the victim. “But I doubt it, because he’s a coward. I hate him with every fiber of my being. He can and will never be forgiven by me or my family.”

Bonnell, for his part, did nothing to dissuade the family of their notions. He sat reclined in his chair at the counsel table, displaying no apparent emotion as five victim impact statements were read. And when given the chance to speak, he was unrepentant.

“Regardless of what everyone believes, I’m innocent,” Bonnell said, drawing scoffs from several members of the gallery. “Y’all believe what y’all want to believe, but I’m innocent. Y’all got the wrong guy.”

Bonnell, then 18, initially admitted that he led a blindfolded Lavalley down the Mesabi Trail in Hibbing on Jan. 6, 2019, shooting him twice in the face.

While he was evasive about certain details in the September 2019 plea, court documents and the testimony of two co-defendants indicated the killing was staged in response to the victim’s alleged advances toward Bonnell’s girlfriend.

A snowmobiler later discovered Lavalley’s body, which had to be identified based on fingerprints. His family learned of his death on what should’ve been his 34th birthday.

While Bonnell admitted to the crime, the Minnesota Supreme Court in December 2022 granted his request for a new trial, finding that his testimony did not technically meet the legal requirements of the charge to which he pleaded guilty.

Lavalley’s family said that decision made them lose a lot of faith in the justice system — though they have since regained some trust through the efforts of the jury, judge and St. Louis County prosecutors Bonnie Norlander and Tyler Kenefick.

Family members described an immense emotional toll — physical and mental struggles, missed birthdays and milestones, constant nightmares and a general distrust of strangers. Lavalley, they said, was a private and non-confrontational person.

Robert Lavalley said a “real man” would never take the life of another in an execution-style situation that leaves the victim defenseless.

“In my religion, I was taught to forgive,” the father said, “but I cannot forgive Bonnell for what he has done.”

Norlander noted that it was Bonnell’s right to appeal his conviction, but she said he did not extend the same right to Lavalley. He received a benefit from accepting responsibility in 2019, the prosecutor said, but now he’ll pay the full price for taking no responsibility.

Defense attorneys Kevin Cornwell and Brittani Mayberry did not make any argument, noting the mandatory nature of the sentence. Cornwell said Bonnell’s family wished to attend the sentencing but was unable to make it Tuesday.

Judge Sullivan thanked Lavalley’s family for their statements and asked Bonnell to spend time in prison reflecting on his decisions.

“It brings me profound sadness the lack of accountability and responsibility that you’ve shown,” the judge said, “and the impact that has on the (Lavalley) family and, frankly, on your own family.”

Sullivan acknowledged the sentence would do little to “ease the pain and trauma” endured by so many, but expressed hope that the Lavalley family could find “some modicum of peace.”

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State baseball championships now split between Friday, Saturday at Target Field

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More forecasted rain for Friday caused the Minnesota State High School League to split its four state baseball title games across two days at Target Field, the league announced Thursday evening.

The new schedule is as follows:

FRIDAY

Class A Championship: No. 2 Parkers Prairie (25-1) vs. No. 4 Springfield (24-2), 12 p.m.

Class 2A Championship: No. 2 Rockford (25-5) vs. No. 4 Foley (23-4), a minimum of 45 minutes after the conclusion of the Class A title game

SATURDAY

Class 3A Championship: No. 3 Mahtomedi (22-4) vs. No. 4 Totino-Grace (18-8), 11 a.m.

Class 4A Championship: No. 3 East Ridge (20-6) vs. No. 5 Mounds View (20-8), a minimum of 45 minutes after the conclusion of the Class 4A title game.

The League said the decision was made in cooperation with the Minnesota Twins, their grounds crew and meteorological resources.

The games were originally moved from Monday to Friday because of rain early in the week.

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3-year-old girl drowns in residential swimming pool in Cottage Grove

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A 3-year-old girl drowned Thursday afternoon in a resident swimming pool in Cottage Grove, officials say.

Cottage Grove police were dispatched about 2:45 p.m. to the 8600 Block of Johansen Avenue South, where the girl had been found unresponsive in the pool, according to a news release issued by the city’s Department of Public Safety.

Neighbors and family members where attempting to resuscitate her when police arrived and took over lifesaving efforts, the news release said.

The girl was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where she was pronounced dead.

“The Cottage Grove Public Safety Department extends our condolences to the family and friends who are grieving from this tragedy,” the news release said.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office will assist Cottage Grove police in the investigation of the drowning, but no foul play is suspected.

No further information was immediately available.

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Trump proposes green cards for foreign grads of US colleges, departing from anti-immigrant rhetoric

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MIAMI — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted on Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric he typically uses on the campaign trail.

Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest” in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the “All-In.”

“What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years,” he said, vowing to address this concern on day one.

Immigration has been Trump’s signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards — documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America’s immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners.

Trump has blamed immigrants who are in the country illegally for committing crimes, stealing jobs and government resources, and suggested that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.

Trump and his allies often say they distinguish between people entering illegally versus legally. But during his administration, Trump also proposed curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.

Right after taking office in 2017, he issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that business visas were only awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers.

He has previously said the H1-B program commonly used by companies to hire foreign workers temporarily — a program he has used in the past — was “very bad” and used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.

During the conversation with “All-In,” Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic for being unable to implement these measures while he was president. He said he knows of stories of people who graduate from top colleges and want to stay in the U.S. but can’t secure visas to do so, forcing them to return to their native countries, specifically naming India and China. He said they go on and become multibillionaires, employing thousands of workers.

“You need a pool of people to work for your company,” Trump said. “And they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be less than smart. You need brilliant people.”

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