The dismembered body of a Minnesota mother who had been missing for two months was found inside of a storage unit last week and police have charged her boyfriend with murder.
Joseph Jorgenson, 40, is accused of killing mom of three Manijeh “Mani” Starren, 33, inside of her St. Paul apartment in April, police said.
Security footage recovered by police allegedly shows Starren attempting to flee her apartment on April 21 around 6 p.m., according to an affidavit of probable cause obtained by Fox News.
Jorgenson pursued her, grabbed her and forced her back into the apartment building. She was never seen alive again, police said.
“Jorgenson is the only one that comes out of that unit, and Mani is never seen again,” St. Paul Sgt. Mike Ernster told reporters at a press conference on Friday. “He did not report her missing to police. Instead, he just went on with his life without saying anything to anyone.”
Starren’s family filed a missing persons report on May 1 after not hearing from her for days, police said. They told police she was “afraid” of her boyfriend and that she had seemed paranoid and scared the last time they spoke with her.
She told her son’s father that Jorgenson had once wrapped a rope around her neck and that she fled her apartment after “things got out of hand,” according to the affidavit. Neighbors reported seeing her with a black eye and red marks on her throat.
When a neighbor offered to call the police, Starren told her that “it will just make things worse.”
Starren had struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues, family members said.
Investigators focused their investigation on Jorgenson.
On May 25, police executed a search warrant on the apartment and found a cracked TV screen and large blood stains on the living room floor, couch and kitchen. Investigators determined that someone had tried to clean up the blood, which was confirmed to be Starren’s.
At Jorgenson’s apartment in nearby Maplewood, neighbors complained of a “foul smell” resembling a dead animal beginning on May 16, which the manager told police “impacted the whole building.”
When the building manager and maintenance employee tried to enter the apartment to inspect the stench, Jorgenson “was verbally hostile” and refused to let them enter a bedroom where the smell appeared to be coming from, according to the affidavit.
Shortly after the altercation, Jorgenson was seen by the manager and maintenance employee carrying large black duffle bags out of the apartment,
They commented to each other that it looked like Jorgenson was “carrying a dead body,” the affidavit says.
When police executed a search warrant at the apartment, Jorgenson barricaded himself inside and tried to start a fire. When the SWAT team forced open the door, he tried to fight them and grab their weapons, according to the affidavit.
Inside, police found a “pool of blood” in a closet where he had tried to light the fire.
GPS data from Jorgenson’s phone revealed that he had been to a storage facility and had used his roommate’s name to rent a unit there earlier that month.
When investigators forced the unit open, they were hit by an overwhelming smell of “decomposing flesh,” the affidavit says.
Starren’s torso was found inside a large cooler, her head in a smaller cooler and her arms and legs in a blue duffle bag.
Police ruled her death a homicide, but a cause of death has not yet been determined.
Jorgenson is being held on $5 million bail and is due back in court Aug. 21, court records show.
He may also be connected to another woman’s disappearance, according to police.
Police said at the press conference that Fanta Xayavong, 33, disappeared in July 2021 and was last seen with Jorgenson.
“She does have a connection with Jorgenson, and, to put it bluntly, we’re concerned for her safety also,” Ernster said.
