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 PM
It 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 Fire
MARK
STODGHILL
DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE
CREATED: JULY 27, 2013
In 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...
Steve 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.
