Minn. man gets 25 years for car wash murder

Published 7:18 am Friday, January 6, 2012

HASTINGS, Minn. — A judge has sentenced a Burnsville man to 25 years in prison for shooting another man to death at a Rosemount car wash.

Twenty-nine-year-old Jonas Grice (grys) previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Grice claimed he was mentally ill when he shot and killed 22-year-old Anthony Hartman of Apple Valley in July 2010. Hartman had intervened in a dispute between a friend and the gunman at the car wash.

But District Judge Karen Asphaug rejected Grice’s mental illness defense last October. The judge sentenced Grice Thursday and ordered him to pay restitution to the victim’s family.

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom says Grice had a history of mental illness and violence “and should never have been carrying a weapon.”