In the morning hours of December 16, 2022, St. Paul, Minnesota, Homoid Detectives AB Desanto and Jennifer O’Donnele were called to a downtown apartment building to investigate a suicide. Name of a 32 -year -old woman Alexandra penig His bathroom was found dead with a single gun pellet wound on the head.
For detectives, which actually happened to Penig is something that still bothers them till date. And this is a question at the center of “48 hours” contributor Natalie Morales in the center of “The Strange Shooting of Alex Penig”. An encounter of the episode is streaming on paramount+.
Terry Randel/Mary Joe Penning 
When the detective desnto and O’Donnell arrived at the apartment, they came to know that Penig was not alone at the time of his death. a man named Matthew Ekar there was also. Ekar and Penig were both nurses and met two years ago when they worked in the same clinic. Ikar first told the respondents that the gun was her, and Penig had caught her, locked himself in the bathroom, and then fired. “I thought everything was fine,” he said. “And then he just caught the gun.” Acker first told the respondents that after hearing the shot, he immediately opened the bathroom door: “I tried to do what I could do. And then I washed my hands … so there is nothing on my hands.” Akar said that he then called 911. But it was too late. He said that he does not know why Penig would do this.
In the penig apartment, alcohol and six bottles were prescription drugs, including antidepressants, all penigs were prescribed. For detectives, it was suggested that Alex could be depressed, and he thought whether he had taken his life.
But he saw something that seemed opposite to Ikar’s story. He had said that he washed his hands in the bathroom sink before making a call on 911, but desnto recalled that the first respondents reported that the sink was drought. “If the sink was dry. If he said, you know, he immediately called the police, that the sink may have been still wet,” Dento explained, “but it was very dry there.”
When O’Donnell looked at the backdrop of Penig, he learned from Alex’s parents that Alex fought with depression and addiction in the past. “I had asked, Um, if she had committed suicide in the past, Um, and Dad said, she tried, uh, first to overdose,” O’Donle said. According to Alex’s father, Jim Penig, many years ago, Alex took a handful of bullets “and then told her mother that she was trying to commit suicide.” After that, Alex’s parents told the detectives that they had sent her for rehab, and she eventually cleared. Despite his previous conflicts, Alex’s parents told O’Donnell that he had seen him in thanksgiving. And his mother, Mary, who had talked to him that evening. “She was doing well,” she said. For him, it was no sense that his daughter died of suicide. “Knowing his child, it was not fit,” Mary Joe Penig said.
Since Alekar was the last person who saw Alex Penig alive, the detectives made him zero. “He is the only one who can tell us what happened. He was the only one who was there,” O’Donel said. He questioned Acar what happened that night. He said that he and Alex Penning went out for many local bars, and everything was fine when he reached his place, “We were laughing on the way,” Ikar said. Desanto asked him if, once he came to the apartment, he got into a fight. Ikar said that he did not.
Close. Abby Desanto: You guys were not arguing or anything?
Matthew Ekar: No.
Close. Abby Desanto: There is no fight with both of you?
Matthew Ekar: Not among us.
For hours, Acker said that Penig had locked herself in the bathroom, fired and then he opened the door to try and help him: “That gun went behind a closed door … I didn’t shoot her.,
Ramese County District Court 
But the detectives had doubts. He then received a call from the forensic unit that was still processing the scene. And according to O’Donel, everything he found changed. “Once Alex was transferred, they were found below where Alex was laying, there was a round metal piece,, He said. It was a ring shape, and about the size of a quarter. O’Donnell said that it was part of the lock from the bathroom door, and the fact that it was discovered under the penig was important. “For us, it meant that the door was open before shooting.”
The detectives felt that the discovery of a metal ring proved that Ikar had lied and did not break the door open after hearing the shot. Detectives suspected that Penig and Acker had argued and had closed the bathroom door to get away from it. The Acker then opened the door, broke the metal part and fell to the ground, and then he shot the penig and he landed on him.
Ikar was accused of killing a second degree. He was convicted in February 2024 and was later sentenced to 30 years.
