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Monday, February 08, 2010

St. Paul / Mother still fighting to solve son's '07 killing

Topic requested...Please click onto the COMMENTS for the story.

posted by Bob at Monday, February 08, 2010

4 Comments:

Anonymous Pioneer Press said...

Shooting is the city's last unsolved homicide of that year
By Mara H. Gottfried
mgottfried@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 02/06/2010 09:50:22 PM CST


Every time Eric Woulard's mother meets with St. Paul police homicide investigators, she brings along his daughter.

Trinity Woulard hadn't been born when her father was gunned down in St. Paul on June 16, 2007.

"I bring her because I want them to see her, and I want her to have an impact, for them to see what he didn't get a chance to see — his beautiful baby," said Sharon Brown, Eric Woulard's mother.

At Brown's most recent meeting with investigators Jan. 21, she learned that her son's case is considered the last unsolved St. Paul homicide of 2007. It earned that grim distinction Jan. 20, when a federal indictment was filed against two men in a triple homicide from March 2007.

Charges in that case "give me a lot of hope," Brown said, "but I'm still angry also. I'm angry with the public, that no one is stepping forward and saying who has done this to Eric."

Woulard, 21, was fatally shot in the 600 block of Van Buren Avenue as he sat in a van near a friend's house. Immediately afterward, a friend of Woulard's, Bartholomew Holloman, was arrested. He was released without being charged. He remains a suspect, but police have said they are also looking at other suspects.

Brown is convinced that people know who killed Woulard.

"I believe they're holding onto that code of silence," she said. "I believe the killer is being protected through that code of silence."

Brown said she calls police about the case once a week and meets with investigators



at least twice a year.
"Here's a mother who has worked hard to keep her son's case active," said St. Paul police Senior Cmdr. Tim Lynch, who heads the homicide unit. "She's really advocated strongly."

Brown brings Trinity to the meetings and said she would bring Woulard's other child, Eric Woulard Jr., but she doesn't like to disrupt the day care schedule of the boy, who will turn 4 in March.

The mothers of Woulard's children struggle with raising their children without a father and having only pictures to show them.

Trinity, who turned 2 in December, now points at Woulard's picture and says, "Daddy," said her mother, Cierra Watson.

"She's always running around saying, 'Dad's here, dad's here,' " Watson said. "I think he's here in spirit."

10:56 AM  
Anonymous story continued said...

Woulard was excited about the baby, predicted she would be a girl (the baby's gender wasn't known when he was killed) and said they should name her Trinity, Watson said.

Eric Jr. asks about his father a lot and says, "Where is he?" said Tanitta Perry, the boy's mother. "I tell him, 'The bad people took him away,' " she said. "He says, 'OK, I'm going to go and get him and bring him back.' "

Woulard was involved in his son's life "every step of the way," Perry said. Now, she wonders what to tell the boy when he's old enough to understand.

"I want to be able to tell him they got the people who killed him," she said.

There were 16 homicides in St. Paul in 2007. Nationally, about two-thirds of homicides are solved.

In St. Paul, five of 18 homicides from 2008 and four of 15 homicides from 2009 remain open, Lynch said. All the homicides in St. Paul in 1992, 1998 and 2003 were solved, but it didn't happen right away, Lynch said.

"I'd love to clear it (Woulard's homicide), too, not just because it's our last murder (of 2007) but because I believe in my heart that everybody deserves justice. Everybody who is murdered, their family ought to have justice," Lynch said. "You never recover from it, but you deserve some justice."

Brown repeated the plea she has made since her son was killed. "I am asking again that if anyone knows anything that they please step forward," she said. "Where are all of Eric's good friends now? They know what happened to my baby. If all these people were such good friends, somebody can make an anonymous call to the police department."

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262.

10:56 AM  
Anonymous Rockin John said...

Rockin John Pt 2
“it takes a lot to laugh”

You can thank the no snitching culture that infects your community. Your supposed community leaders like Nate Khaliq, the NAACP chapter president, is filing lawsuits against the light rail plan for the central corridor. Is he out there in the community trying to fight the violence? Is he protesting against the culture that breeds the no snitching code? Is he out there preaching respect and dignity of people? No, he is going afte the money pur and simple. No money in keeping people from killing each other, more money in filing lawsuits for go away money. This is the classic behavior of a television activist. He supplies sound bites and so solutions to real problems.

11:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The city caught the cop killer that shot the "officer" at the church parking lot at 6th St. and Hope on the east side.
Eric Woulard's must be the wrong color, so St.Paul doesn't care enough about this case.

6:55 AM  

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