A Minnesota Man Made Advances on His Coworker. When She Rebuffed Him, He Shot Her to Dead.

A Minnesota man was sentenced for fatally shooting a woman at work who asked him not to touch her, authorities said.

On Oct. 24, 2022, around 7 a.m., police in St. Cloud responding to the report of a shooting in the parking lot of Dubow Textile found the 28-year-old victim lying next to her car suffering gunshot wounds, according to a criminal complaint obtained by KNSI radio.

Lifesaving measures were unsuccessful and the woman, Nicole Hammond, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Before the shooting, an eyewitness claimed to investigators they saw their coworker, Michael Jordan Carpenter, 38, exit his vehicle and walk across the parking lot, police said.

The witness then heard a gunshot and allegedly saw Carpenter jog back to his vehicle, get in and drive away from the lot.

The victim’s coworkers told police that the woman had repeatedly rebuffed Carpenter’s advances over the past month, and a search of her phone showed she exchanged texts with the suspect telling him to not touch her or manipulate her, investigators said.

The woman also told Carpenter in a message not to make the situation between them awkward at their job, according to police, who said another text from the woman’s phone to an individual claimed Carpenter was angry with her.

The complaint states a colleague phoned Carpenter to tell him the victim was shot, and he responded that he knew and was at his sister’s home in Sauk Rapids and not doing well.

Police arrested Carpenter at his sibling’s residence and investigators found in his vehicle a .9mm pistol and a loaded magazine containing ammunition that matched a shell recovered at the crime scene, according to the complaint.

Among several contradictory statements, Carpenter claimed he saw someone shoot the woman in the parking lot and he was traumatized so didn’t report for work, police said.

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On Sept. 20, 2024, a judge sentenced Carpenter to the statutory amount of life in prison without parole after he was found guilty of the first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree intentional murder of Hammond, authorities said.

At his sentencing hearing, Carpenter spoke after Hammond's family's victim impact statements, saying, "I agree that she was a really amazing person. She was really nice and very caring," KMSP reported.

Hammond's mother, Terri Anderson, said she thought Carpenter's comments were "quite shocking," adding, "If she was such an amazing girl to him and a beautiful girl and everything, this shouldn't have happened."