Behind the Trigger: Gang Hits of Saint Paul
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This is the Killer Chronicles with a tale of betrayal amongst loved ones, violence on the streets, and corruption in the justice system.
All within a city that bears the name of an apostle known for healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons.
St Paul is the nearly 200-year-old capital city of Minnesota.
Known for a cathedral of the same name.
Like many steamboat towns that fall along the Mississippi River, it has a certain mystique to it with ghost stories, tales about a secret network of underground tunnels, and Prohibition era folklore.
Today, it is ranked as one of America’s 50 safest cities.
The deadly violence that does occur generally falls into two categories, domestic dispute and gangs, vying for their control of their regions of the city.
You may have seen our prior videos on St Paul’s twin city, Minneapolis, which covered secretive Somalian gangs that morphed into Bloods and Crips sets, or the ongoing war between groups in the north and south, collectively referred to as the highs and the lows.
St Paul’s gang situation is analogous to the latter geographic setup, except it’s divided horizontally.
Gangs on the east side include the appropriately named East Side Boys, the Everybody Killer or EBK gang, and the Ham Crazy Gang, which stands for Hoes and Money.
On the west side are gangs known as the Hit Squad, the Shooter Bay gang, and the Vil.
All of these are relatively smaller groups of 15 to 30 people and would be self-contained if not for their alliances.
There are also subsets of well-known gangs such as the Latin Kings or the Hilltop Hustlers, a blood set.
Each of these groups has a different size, history, and foundation.
And some members are known to change affiliations or belong to more than one group at the same time, which is a deviation from how things normally go in gang culture.
In the 2010s, tensions between East and West were particularly high, culminating with a war between the Hit Squad and Ham Crazy that lasted years.
There were threats and taunts, beatdowns and shootings.
In 2014, the Hit Squad made its name known to law enforcement by robbing the Minnesota State Fair, taking $104,000 in cash from the beer garden.
But a lot of the violence was much less planned.
simply the result of spontaneous encounters or druginduced outbursts.
Anyone could be a victim.
In one June 2015 incident, the hit squad surrounded a 14-year-old ham crazy member at a bus stop, breaking his arm until a ham crazy member intervened by firing 10 shots at the attackers, wounding one of them.
One of the bullets struck a local mother who was driving by with her children.
No one was killed, but the near miss set off alarm bells within law enforcement, who responded by bringing in the feds.
By the decade’s end, both sides were hit with federal indictments for trafficking and keeping dozens of firearms at stash houses.
On the ham crazy side, prosecutors rounded up men like Pierre Jenkins aka Pistol, Casey Davis, aka Kop, and Nikia Martin aka Freaky Nick.
On the hit squad side were John Eps aka King Savage, Michael Trevino aka Mike Mike and Dearius Gilbert aka Boss Sleep.
The two most notable figures though were Kendall Puit aka Tinky and Kasanova Carter.
While prosecutors said both were part of the hit squad, Kasanova was known around town as a member of the Latin Kings who went by King Stump.
Carter was accused of helping the hit squad arrange a gun deal in concert with his lifelong friend Derek Days.
Another hit squad member named Anthony Protho and a government snitch.
The three men had no idea the fourth party was working with the government and actually planned to rob him during the deal.
Carter would later claim that he was passed out from Xanax when his accompllices allegedly robbed the informant, who immediately told law enforcement, sparking a high-speed chase on Interstate 94.
After it was over and the three were apprehended, Carter obtained his GED in jail, blaming his crimes on drug addiction that started when he was just 13.
Through his lawyer, he pledged that after federal prison, he would end his pill habit, further his education, and focus on bettering himself.
Tinky was also in custody and making similar promises.
He was accused of furthering the gang war between Hit Squad and Ham Crazy by being involved in the 2015 bus stop beatdown and of firearms trafficking.
Prosecutors called him a lifelong marijuana addict who was smoking 27 blunts a day by age 14.
The defense said he’d been assimilated into gang life as a kid amidst this addiction, dropping out of high school because of peer pressure and turning himself into police when he saw his own face on a news report about the pending indictment.
Before sentencing, Tinky’s lawyer had this to say.
All he has known his whole life was survival through crime.
Whether it was stealing because he was hungry or watching his father and six brothers go to prison.
The two men and their codefendants ended up doing multi-year prison stints as did the ham crazy members.
But gang violence on the streets of St Paul would continue.
In 2018, a young man named Wilbert Harris Mallister aka G Will was shot and killed at St Paul’s Summit University neighborhood in a weed deal that devolved into a chaotic shootout.
Three years later, his friends were still upset about it and blamed a shoot a boy gang member named Javon Andrew Malone, aka J Dot.
On June 9th, 2021, Malone was among a large group of Westsiders who attended a fundraiser at St Paul’s Thompson Park.
The fundraiser was intended to raise bail for two hit squad members charged with murder in Rochester.
But things went arry when a man named Brendan Jamal Reynolds approached on a motorcycle and went right up to Malone.
He said, quote, “You got my brother killed, then shot Malone, killing him in front of numerous other Westside gang members, including J Dot’s good friend, Montes Davis, aka BD Tez.
” For months after that, rumors permeated that Carter had somehow helped set up Jot to be shot that day.
Reynolds was able to get away from the fundraiser unscathed and later pleaded no contest to manslaughter for 8 to 15 years in prison.
But not everyone who fell victim to St Paul gangs was even involved in the feud.
It was around 900 pm on August 14th, 2023 when a group of rappers and their associates gathered to shoot a music video on a place called Raspberry Island located in the center of the Mississippi River in the heart of town.
The rappers were affiliated with the Westside and included artists King T-Man and MB Honcho 1014.
As they were setting up the video shoot, they heard a sound that annoyed them.
It was the music of NLUK SK aka Roselle Antonio Granger, an East Side affiliated rapper coming from a parked Chevy Suburban.
MB Honcho 1014, a Shooter Boy gang member whose real name is Romelo Markel Ephan Laja Randall, approached the Suburban and demanded the man shut off his music.
When the Suburban’s driver inquired if Romelo was making this request because he was from the west side, Romelo pulled out a gun and shot him three times from just a few feet away.
The driver, 20-year-old Marcus Anthony Baker, was killed.
Though MB Honcho would later insist that Baker’s death was unintentional, Baker’s family would later say in court that he had no involvement in gangs other than a passing interest in the local rap scene.
Through her tears, Baker’s mother said at MB Honcho’s sentencing that her son probably would have just turned his music down if someone had walked up and asked him nicely.
A ghost gun with Romelo’s DNA was found by the Mississippi River under a bridge a short distance from the shooting, possibly through the group’s failed attempt to dispose of the murder weapon.
Romelo was quickly arrested and continued to put out music from jail, but eventually received 30 years for murder.
Police say King T-Man’s phone placed him at the scene, but he avoided criminal charges.
After pleading guilty, MB Honcho spoke out in court, reflecting on the lives he wasted.
Quote, “I knew Marcus Anthony Baker less than 5 minutes, but I feel that he was a much brighter and better person than I have ever been.
I know that regardless of the circumstances, he did not deserve to lose his life.
” Police believe that the situation was exacerbated not because Marcus was playing loud music, but specifically because he was playing a rapper affiliated with Romelo’s rivals.
Ironically, NLUK SK would end up in prison soon, too.
Last March, he was sentenced to 10 years in federal custody for trafficking fentanyl pills.
But like MB Honcho, he didn’t let it affect his career.
His album release around the time of his indictment was the aptly titled record indicted.
But the East versus West rivalry was beginning to take a backseat to infighting on the west side of St Paul.
Things had been tense since the fallout at Thompson Park, but the situation took an even greater turn for the worse as people from the hit squad federal case began to finish up their sentences and get released from prison.
Kasanova Carter was one of the first men out.
And true to his word, he began focusing on raising his young daughter and trying to rebuild his life at first.
But one December day in 2021, when he heard a rumor that Tinky was smuting up some of his friends, Kasanova got on Facebook to settle the score.
Quote, “ABK Tinky really out here throwing dirt on the guy’s name, saying they told.
” That’s not a good look, my guy, when we all know you really told on dude.
This banter may not sound like much, but Kasanova had just publicly accused Tinky of being a government snitch.
something that could get him ostracized from his friends or worse.
Tinky was still in jail at the time that the Facebook post was made, but at the tail end of his sentence in early 2022, he was released from federal prison.
Within 4 days, he plotted his violent retribution.
It was the night of February 2nd, 2022 when Puit got together with three other fellow gang members.
There was Montes Davis of the Shooter Boys, Daycoon Houston aka Day, also of the Shooter Boys, Tinky of the Hit Squad, and a fourth man who might have been the most ruthless of all.
His name was Deloquay Williams, aka Lee Blood of the Hilltop Hustlers Blood set.
At 27, Williams had already gone to prison twice for a violent robbery where he shot a longtime friend in the kneecap and an attempted murder where he shot a former Ham Crazy member in the ass during a fist fight involving Hilltop and Shooter Boys versus Everybody Killer members from the east side.
All four men had guns when they headed to Kasanova Carter’s home that night.
While the Facebook post was only aimed at Tinky, Tinky’s three companions fully understood why Tinky was enraged.
Two of them would later testify for the prosecution that they viewed snitches with utter contempt, such that this type of accusation was deadly serious.
That night, Kasanova was simply sitting in the front room of a home on Winslow Avenue in St Paul playing video games when dozens of shots ripped through from the outside.
He was struck numerous times by three shooters as a fourth gunman opened fire through the front door for no particular reason.
Then the assassins ran back to their car and sped off into the night.
Kasanova Carter was dead, but his words still nod away at Lee blood.
What if he’d been right? What if Tinky was a snitch after all and was now in a position to use the other men as a bargaining chip in the event that the cops came calling? Later that night, in the presence of others, Lee Blood snorted a line of cocaine off a piece of his friend’s mother’s furniture and announced that he had another plot in mind.
Kill Tinky.
But if that was truly Lee Blood’s plan, he would never get the chance.
10 days after Kasanova’s death, Montes Davis was arrested.
Tinky was booked 6 days after that.
Then Lee Blood was arrested on March 6th, but not immediately for Kasanova’s murder.
No, instead he was identified as the man who had shot and killed Regis Jones on Blair Avenue, then left his supposed friend’s body to freeze overnight.
They believe Regis had somehow learned too much about what happened to Kasanova, and Lee Blood killed him to ensure his silence.
So now Lee Blood faced two bifurcated life cases, meaning he was going to go on trial separately for each one.
And 6 weeks after his arrest, the police caught up with their fourth suspect.
When he was brought into police custody, Houston appeared solemn, remorseful, and ready to talk.
In fact, he was so forthcoming, the cops successfully lobbyed that prosecutors charge him with a lesser form of murder than the others.
To make matters worse for Lee Blood.
His DNA had been found at the scene of Kasanova’s front window.
And while he could always argue in court that he sneezed on the real killer earlier in the day, a jury was pretty unlikely to buy that.
Still, he opted to take both murders to trial.
In the streets of St Paul, Lee Blood could always rely on his gun to get himself out of a sticky situation.
But inside Ramsay County Jail, he would have to rely on something else.
His boyish good looks and charm.
And who better to receive these gifts than a lonely jail nurse who was in dire need of a friend.
Christine Satrianiano was going through multiple personal crises when she met Lee Blood inside the Ramsay County Jail where she worked.
He was an accused murderer about half her age.
She was a nurse with a steady job in a government pension upon her retirement.
Somehow the two hit it off and love blossomed.
Here’s what Williams told her in his own words.
You’re beautiful inside and out.
I crave your energy, vibrations, smile, laugh, spirit.
Moreover, your conversation.
I love you.
I want you.
Stay strong and pray often.
Of course, more cynical minds might believe that Deloquay Williams was actually just manipulating Christine to pay him money and could take messages to people in surreptitious ways.
But he assured whoever would listen that nothing could be further from the truth.
Before long, Christine began sending Williams money, taking messages to people for him, and using a burner phone so that they could have sexually explicit conversations.
Then, she crossed a major line.
Lee Blood was hearing that multiple codefendants were talking to police and felt he needed to send a message to Tinky and Tez.
It was a simple message that came with an implied threat, stay strong, and that he knew someone was talking.
All he needed was to send it with someone with the ability to travel easily through the county jail system.
But Williams and Christine did not do a great job covering up their sorted affair, and recorded jail phone calls of their sexy talk soon made their way back to homicide investigators.
Christine was detained and absolutely grilled in a police interrogation.
She ended up being sentenced to probation and repeatedly stated that the whole thing ruined her life, led to her public embarrassment, and destroyed her marriage.
Just before Christine was set to testify against Lee Blood, he filed a federal lawsuit against her.
The suit contained allegations such as that she touched his penis in jail.
In a self-filed legal motion replet with misspellings, Lee Blood argued that the alleged touching of the penis entitled him to $8 million because it violated his right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment.
Despite his portrayal himself as a victim, police determined that no such touching of his genitals occurred and that Christine’s assessment of the whole thing was basically correct.
The lawsuit was thrown out of court and Lee Blood never got the 8 million or any money for that matter.
His subsequent legal defeat was much more serious.
At the murder trial for Kasanova, he was inundated with witnesses who established motive, means, and DNA.
And then, for good measure, Montes Davis took the stand against him.
Jurors convicted him after barely a day in the deliberation room.
They basically got a free lunch from the court and then read out the guilty verdicts.
Tez’s cooperation agreement required him to plead guilty, too.
He would later say at his sentencing that he knew he ruined his life, but that he was already in pretty bad shape to begin with.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, grew up with parents who did nothing but quote hustle and run the streets, and never learned anything except the hard life lessons he received from repeatedly screwing up.
Lee Blood was given a life sentence and still has to go on trial in Regis’s killing.
Tinky pleaded guilty, but unlike the other two, he did not testify.
For his lack of cooperation, he received 33 years.
Tez got 22.
Houston received 15.
Both men claimed they had no real desire to participate in the murder, but were instead scared to back out, afraid that their so-called friends in the car would kill them for not participating.
Lee Blood, they claimed, was enthusiastic about it, which is ironic because he had no direct motive to kill Kasanova.
Out of the four, he’s the only one likely to die in prison over it.
All of this seemed to weigh on Tez Davis the day he was sentenced as he prepared himself for decades in prison.
He reflected on all the things he used to care about the most that were now meaningless.
At one point in time, he was a part of a loyal network of gangs that included the Latin kings.
Each so opposed to the idea of snitching that the mere suggestion of it could get someone killed.
Now Tez had become a well-known snitch.
One of his closest friends had been killed in front of him.
The Latin kings wanted him dead, and his earlier aspirations of becoming a powerful gangster meant nothing.
We’ll leave you with these words that he spoke to his sentencing judge.
I have a 2-year-old child that I never held or touched yet.
I don’t gang bang no more.
I left all of those negative people, places, and things in my rear view.
I want a regular lifestyle.
I want my daughter to look up to me and see that I’m a good man.
Davis is set for release sometime between 2037 and 2044.
