by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Sartell remains stunned by the shock of yet another one of its promising young men being murdered in the Fargo-Moorhead area.
On the morning of June 23, Samuel Traut, 24, was found murdered in the home where he was living. It has been only 10 months since Tom Bearson, 18, also of Sartell, was killed – possibly in Fargo – and his body left on a lot in Moorhead. That murder remains unsolved.
Traut, the son of Lloyd and MaryAnn Traut of Sartell, was a 2013 graduate of North Dakota State University, the same college Bearson was attending when he went missing early one September morning.
Traut’s killing was apparently random and particularly vicious. He opened his door to a stranger at a late-night hour, and the stranger beat him to death with a hammer. Fargo Police Detective, Lt. Joel Vettel said it this way: “A good man unknowingly opened his door to a monster.”
The suspect, who was arrested the day after the murder, allegedly killed Traut just 12 hours after he murdered another man, stabbing him 50 times because, as the suspect told police, he’d been charging him too much for drugs, stealing all his girlfriends and disrespecting him. That murder victim was Clarence Flowers, 45. Flowers was a limousine driver in Fargo, described by many as a kind person who was about to become a grandfather.
The man charged in both killings is Ashley Kenneth Hunter, 35.
According to a police press conference led by Fargo Police Chief Dave Todd, the following is a time line of what happened in Fargo June 22-23:
Hunter allegedly murdered Flowers in that man’s apartment. About 12 hours later, in the night, he went to a nearby house and knocked on the door, asking for a glass of water. Traut went to get him a glass of water. In the meantime, according to what Hunter later told police, it dawned on him that his picture might be on the media for the previous murder he committed. He thought Traut might have called the police while he was getting the glass of water. He decided to kill Traut when he came back with the water, and that is what he did. Hunter then set fire to several objects in the home, hoping to cover up his crime. A neighbor, hearing a fire alarm, called the fire department, and that is how Traut’s body was discovered in the early-morning hours.
Hunter told police he’d been under the influence of methamphetamines and was feeling paranoid during the time the killings were committed. He has a record of previous arrests, one of them a warrant for shoplifting, and he was driving a stolen Dodge pickup before and after the murders, according to the police report.
Traut, who had recently returned from a stay in North Dakota, was living as a guest in the house at 1122 12th St. N., Fargo. The house is owned by St. Paul’s Catholic Newman Center, which is next door and a place Traut spent most of his time. Traut, who holds an engineering degree, was also a seminary student and a Bible-study leader at Newman Center.
A candlelight prayer vigil was held for Traut across the street from the house on 12th Street N.
At the police press conference, Father James Cheney said there are about 4,000 college students who are Catholics in the Fargo-Moorhead area and Traut was a “standout” among them. He was, Cheney said, a “man of tremendous virtue” and a man “of tremendous courage and virtue.”
Cheney also said this: “We are just trying to make sense out of how all this happened in our community. How could just a random, senseless, tremendously horrific act of violence and murder be committed against such a virtuous, just and kind man?”
Many people in Sartell and elsewhere are pondering that very question.
Traut was described on Facebook sites as an intelligent, dedicated, energetic man who loved to laugh, to make others laugh and to help others. They are the very qualities friends and loved ones of Tom Bearson cherished in him.
(Information for this story came from various sources, including the Fargo police news conference, the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, the Minneapolis Tribune and Valley News.)
