This post will consist mostly of two newspaper articles (indented, below) relating Joseph Couture's confession to the murder, plus aiding and abetting arson and aiding and abetting the tampering with a witness charges. My comments on those articles are in red font. I will also post screen shots of Joseph Couture's Department of Corrections Offender Locator, and of the court records of both Joseph and Sandra Couture, regarding all of the charges. The newspaper articles are for educational purposes. The screen shots are of public records that anyone can find by doing a search.
(Carlton County Pine Journal)
Published July 26, 2013, 01:31 PMIt took him nearly 13 years to admit it, but before a full St. Louis County courtroom, Joseph John Couture testified today that he beat and stabbed Trina Louise Langenbrunner to death on Sept. 3, 2000.
Couture, 42, of Cloquet pleaded guilty to intentional second-degree murder, first-degree aiding and abetting aggravated witness tampering, and aiding and abetting first-degree arson.Judge Dale Harris accepted the plea agreement reached between the defendant and the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office and immediately sentenced Couture to nearly 40 years in prison.Under terms of the plea agreement, Couture was sentenced to 386 months in prison on the murder conviction and 86 months in prison for the witness-tampering conviction, to be served one after the other. He was sentenced to 129 months in prison on the arson conviction, to be served at the same time as the murder conviction. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 1-12-2015: When I first looked Joseph Couture up on the Department of Corrections Offender Locator in November 2013, his “Controlling sentence” was listed as “aiding and abetting tampering with a witness”, and homicide wasn’t even mentioned. Then all of a sudden, the Locator site went down, and when it came up again, Couture’s info had changed. Though homicide is mentioned, now, his sentence isn’t anywhere near 39 years. And, now he’s not in a DOC facility, at all. He may be in some facility out of state, per his own request, according to a later article. There is a caseworker mentioned, and a phone number (see screen shot below. You can enlarge any of these screen shots by either left or right-clicking on them, and following your browser's instructions.)
However, when I asked someone to call the phone number listed for the case worker in that screen shot, that person reported that whoever answered the phone seemed annoyed and said he didn’t know anything at all about the case.I emailed that person back with what I saw as 3 possibilities: “Either the website is wrong, or the guy is lying, or he isn't performing his duty whatsoever. It HAS to be one of those. You just took "No, I don't know anything about it" for an acceptable answer??”That person came up with a 4th possibility: “[Maybe] what he meant was "I am overworked and underpaid. I don't need more work. I have too much on my plate already." This is not an admirable attitude but can happen with jaded govt workers in this field.”I almost feel sorry for the "jaded govt worker" with "too much on his plate already", the poor guy. If he doesn't want to do his job, he ought to resign it.There’s no use in me calling the “Case Worker” number from Thailand, that’s for sure. I’ve thought of emailing the address given to ask for information, but if I did get an address, I still don’t know what I would do with it. Any correspondence by letter could easily be coerced, as I am convinced the “confession” itself was. The prisoner needs a visit in person, preferably with an attorney for backup, and it is impossible for me to drive from Thailand to wherever those people are locked up. For right now, I’ll just continue pointing out the anomalies in the case, and hope that someone in a better position than I take interest and join in. I have recently emailed a retired person who actually worked on the case, and I am waiting for his answer. I'll give him a couple of weeks, and then report on that.)Assistant St. Louis County Attorneys Jessica Smith and Jon Holets prosecuted the case. Public defender Cynthia Evenson represented Couture. (Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: It doesn't seem that the Public Defender (“Public Pretender”, in local lingo) ever required any sworn testimony of witnesses, or any physical evidence, whatsoever, from the Prosecutors. Just a little over one week after I wrote a long email to the Public Defender’s investigator Ron Taggart detailing MY testimony, Couture’s “confession” suddenly came up. Coincidence, perhaps. Was Couture even informed of my testimony??)Langenbrunner, a 33-year-old mother of three, last was seen hitchhiking in the area of Brookston Road between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000. Couture was a neighbor of Langenbrunner at the time. The victim’s beaten and stabbed body was discovered off a rural road in southern St. Louis County.St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin read a prepared statement outside the courthouse after the hearing. He said his office credited the "unwavering commitment of law enforcement in the successful prosecution of this case. The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are to be commended for a a job well done. Their compassionate perseverance ensured a just conclusion for this family and community," he said.Trina Louise (St. Germaine) Langenbrunner was born Sept. 12, 1966, in St. Paul and attended Humboldt High School there. She was a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe and worked as a home health aide while living in Cloquet.
Here is the second
article, (offered for educational purposes), with my comments in red font.
After 13 Years, Minn. Man Admits Killing Woman, Setting FireMARK STODGHILL
DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE
CREATED: JULY 27, 2013In an attempt to intimidate a witness, Joseph Couture and his girlfriend burned down the house of a relative.July 27--It took him nearly 13 years to admit it, but before a full St. Louis County courtroom, Joseph John Couture testified Friday that he beat and stabbed Trina Louise Langenbrunner to death on Sept. 3, 2000.The posters of a smiling Langenbrunner advertising a $100,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of her killer that were posted around the Northland can finally be filed away.Couture, 42, of Cloquet pleaded guilty to intentional second-degree murder, first-degree aiding and abetting aggravated witness tampering, and aiding and abetting first-degree arson.Judge Dale Harris accepted the plea agreement and immediately sentenced Couture to nearly 40 years in prison.Under terms of the plea agreement, Couture was sentenced to 32 years, 2 months, in prison on the murder conviction and 7 years, 2 months, in prison for the witness-tampering conviction, to be served one after the other. He was sentenced to 10 years, 9 months, in prison on the arson conviction, to be served at the same time as the murder conviction.Langenbrunner, a 33-year-old mother of three, last was seen hitchhiking in the area of Brookston Road between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2000. Couture was a neighbor of Langenbrunner at the time. The victim's beaten and stabbed body was discovered off a rural road in southern St. Louis County.Couture told the court that he was on his way home after drinking at a couple of Cloquet establishments on the night of Sept. 2-3. He said he spotted Langenbrunner standing in the middle of the road and had to swerve to go around her. He said she asked him for a ride and he gave her one, but when she told him she wanted to go all the way to Grand Rapids he said he was too drunk to drive that far.He said Langenbrunner became angry and put a knife in his face and threatened him. He said he was able to get the knife away from her and "stuck her." They were wrestling and he stuck her again and she fell down.
(Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: I read in the June 2012 News Tribune story when Couture was first arrested, that the unnamed witnesses said that Couture had his OWN knife, that he always carried in a sheath on his belt, that was never again seen after the murder. Well, maybe Trina Langenbrunner wrestled THAT knife out of his sheath, or maybe she always carried her own knife, too. But she got so angry about not getting a ride to Grand Rapids that she threatened a man considerably larger than her with a knife? Likely story, I guess.Also, a story that prosecutors might use to assure Couture that the judge will be lenient (and save themselves a trial in which they had no real evidence, because they refused to LOOK at the real evidence pointing towards someone else, despite repeatedly being told) – because this scenario is pretty close to self-defense, here, don’t you think, instead of murder, (wink wink), maybe the judge will let you off, eh? (wink wink).However, in the original June 2012 story related in this post, the witness said that Couture claimed that HE himself made the first attack in anger at having being turned down for sex, that it “went brutal”, that he “whooped the dog-sh*t out of her”, etc., etc…. The story has completely changed between 2012 and 2013. )The defendant, who was 5-foot-9, 210 pounds at the time, said the 5-5, 115-pound woman screamed and told him she was going to call the cops and tell them that he tried to kill her. He said he began hitting her in the face and stabbing her to shut her up. The victim had 29 stab entry wounds to her torso, face and back.Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Jessica Smith asked Couture if it was his intent to shut the victim up for good by killing her. He said yes.Under questioning by co-prosecutor Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Jon Holets, Couture admitted that he had conspired with his girlfriend, Sandra Couture, in an attempt to intimidate witnesses and dissuade them from testifying against him.Sandra Couture pleaded guilty in April to aiding and abetting first-degree aggravated witness tampering and aiding and abetting first-degree arson in April and was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison. She admitted burning down the home of a relative of one of the witnesses against Joseph Couture.
(Comment by Lloyd Wagner 1-16-2015: Remember, this is the “arson fire” talked about in this post and this post – the ”arson fire” that was never reported in any media, and in which two dogs went missing and were presumed dead without leaving any skeletons behind, the “arson fire” in which a house plus two vehicles were destroyed but damages were less than $8,600, and the same “arson fire” that investigators figured out the Coutures did because they had discussed “going fishing” in a telephone conversation or in notes held up to the jail window during a visit, the latter as related in this post. That “arson fire”.)Public defender Cynthia Evenson read a statement to the court in which Joseph Couture apologized to the family of the victim and called himself a coward. The statement said that he understood that he would receive no forgiveness and that he would have to live with that. The defendant is also a convicted Level 3 sex offender.He had been charged with sexually assaulting Langenbrunner when he murdered her, but that charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement. Also as part of the plea agreement, the attorneys and the judge are supporting Couture's request that he serve his sentence outside of Minnesota.
(Comment by Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: This may indeed be the reason that I read in the Prisoner Locator that Joseph Couture is not in a DOC facility. Someone suggested (jokingly, of course), that maybe they just took him to the Minnesota state line and gave him a wink, a nod, and a warning -- kind of like a “GOC” sort of thing, like Tom Hinze got so many, many times in this post. It sure is darned funny, though, that the “Case Worker” listed in the prisoner locator (in the screen shot above) was annoyed and claimed to know nothing at all about the people or the case.
Margaret Dupuis, mother of the victim, spoke for her family outside the courthouse."I just want to thank St. Louis County and Jessica (Smith) and everybody that has helped with this case getting solved finding the killer of my daughter," Dupuis said.St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin read a prepared statement. He said his office credited the "unwavering commitment of law enforcement in the successful prosecution of this case. The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension are to be commended for a job well done. Their compassionate perseverance ensured a just conclusion for this family and community."THIS CONTENT CONTINUES ONTO THE NEXT PAGE...· 1· 2Steve Steblay, now supervising deputy of the sheriff's Duluth office, was assigned to the case as an investigator on the day Langenbrunner was first reported missing. "We never gave up hope and we just continued on to do what we do and it finally got completed," Steblay said. "I guess I also wish to thank Trina's family. They never gave up on us. Their trust in us and their patience for all these years continued on and worked with us throughout the whole thing. So kudos to everyone involved with the conclusion of this case."The sheriff's office said it followed up on just under 1,000 leads and conducted hundreds of interviews in investigating the case for nearly a dozen years before arresting Couture on June 15, 2012,. Two confidential witnesses helped make the case against him.Court rules permit witnesses' names to remain confidential until they testify if the prosecutor files a written certificate with the trial court stating that to identify a witness may endanger the integrity of a continuing investigation or subject witnesses or other persons to physical harm.The witnesses' names have not been made public and are protected by a court order.
(Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: I received no such protection. My life was threatened by Tom Hinze with no consequence to him whatsoever -- and in fact, he was released early from NERCC, right back into the rural neighborhood and allowed to leave the State of Minnesota, with no reporting requirements whatsoever -- and Trina Langenbrunner's daughter Shelley Tormanen actually threatened me with arrest by Interpol if I didn’t cease telling what I saw and heard in this case.)It remains to be seen if they, or anyone, will collect the $100,000 reward that was offered for the arrest and conviction of Langenbrunner's murderer. Rubin and sheriff's deputies said the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is in charge of the reward."The BCA will coordinate with the local law enforcement agencies to review how any information provided in this case led to today's outcome and identify those who are entitled to a reward," Jill Oliveira, public information officer for the BCA, said Friday.
Trina Louise (St. Germaine) Langenbrunner was born Sept. 12, 1966, in St. Paul and attended Humboldt High School there. She was a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe and worked as a home health aide while living in Cloquet.Copyright 2013 - Duluth News Tribune
(Comment from Lloyd Wagner, 5-26-2014: Obviously, the anonymous unnamed witness will get no reward. Geez, I hope that the witnesses' relative’s house, vehicles and magical dogs were insured against arson, or that poor unrewarded witness will probably feel obligated to pay for the damages at his relative’s place, too, up to that $8,600 total reported in all of Carlton County in all of 2012 – (see screen grab below).
But then the unnamed relative of the unnamed witness may may eventually get paid back the money from the unreported-in-any-media arson fire, because eventually the Coutures may be able to earn enough money in prison to pay off their court-ordered “restitution” of exactly $34,845.00 each. (Please see screen grabs of the Couture’s court records for all the cases below. There are 13 screen grabs, in all. The ordered financial reimbursement is on the last page of the arson case for each person. Please notice, the "confessed" murder itself didn’t require any financial reimbursement, only the burning of that mysterious house, wherever it was never reported from.)
It's lucky the Carlton County deputies picked up
the remains of those Molotov cocktails (broken bottles) that Sandra supposedly threw on July 19, 2012 (no fire reported in any newspaper, though, until weeks later), or the former
homeowners might even get fined for having garbage in their yard, and then
Coutures would eventually have to pay for that, too. (wink wink).
Anyway, that is the end of this post. I will continue in a subsequent post, by relating how I finally located the whereabouts of Tom Hinze, though by the time I found him, he really WAS deceased.
Thank you for reading, and please stay tuned.
