Two weeks ago, two people in their twenties were shot in nearby Granite Falls: Kara Monson, a young mother and hair stylist who died at the scene, and Christopher Panitzke, 28, who was able to call 911 before he was rushed to the local hospital before he was airlifted to the Cities. He later died of the multiple gunshot wounds. Like Monson, Panitzke is survived by a daughter.
A manhunt began for Andrew Dikken, a "person of interest" for whom a warrant was issued later. Law enforcement conducted aggressive searches of nearby Minnesota River bottomland after Dikken's vehicle was discovered north of Belview. Bluestem knows these beautiful and remote stretches well from exploring the river valley.
Yesterday afternoon, family members who had been assisting police brought Dikken into the Renville County sheriff's office, where he was arrested and transported to the Yellow Medicine County Jail, where he remains in custody. A support case in Minnesotal civil court records and postings in a Facebook page devoted to the incident indicate that Dikken, too, is a father.
CBS Minnesota reported on September 4 that "Dikken has no criminal history," but court records tell a different story.
All three individuals have criminal court records; those of the victims mostly incurred in their teens. The most serious offense was a felony drug conviction for Panitzke when he was 19; two driving related offenses, including open bottle, remained open at the time of his death. Monson was cited seven times for minor consumption, and had been convicted of a DWI-related offense at 20. She'd been cited for open bottle violations in 2009 and 2011.
A Monson cousin who was serving as editor of the Granite Falls wrote in Love Lives On that while Monson had described herself as a "wild one" as a partying teen, her daughter's birth changed matters:
I picture us sitting on a tailgate as the night unravels around us and our future dances before us in yellow flame and merriment echoes.
Arms at our sides—her feet swing. She leans over and playfully bumps me with her shoulder. I smile down and she leans in with her secret.
“We’re the wild ones,” she says smiling...
••••
. . . Oh how my family worried over her when we were still young and wild. The truth is we weren’t the “wild ones”. We just loved chasing them. Our hearts were somehow predisposed to love wild things. To find the source of all things that require passion.
The day after she is killed by a man, her mother talks about it differently. “She looked for good in everyone and everything. It was the mistreated. Those mistreated ones. Those were the ones she attached to.”
It made no difference that it worried her mother and father. She was a small-town-daddy’s-princess who pierced her nose, got a tattoo and was shameless about it. Those little flaws of people. Those beautiful, beautiful flaws. They shimmer in the eyes of the wild ones. And those that know— know the soul is born and made distinct, unique and all the more beautiful, by those imperfections.
Only grace can quell our wild yearning to belong. Our longing for passion and the wild.
Kara’s grace came with the birth of her daughter. She found purpose, understanding and wild, wild love in the presence of her newborn daughter. And it didn’t take long for the family to stop worrying over their favorite. We were so proud to see her with her daughter.
Dikken's record is more elaborate, with convictions for theft and receiving stolen property filed in 2004 in Douglas County, when he was 19. Dikken's brushes with the law continued in 2009, when he was convicted of DWI in a case where charges of fleeing a peace office, open bottle, and possession of pot and drug paraphernalia were dismissed.
That same year, he was also convicted on another misdemeanor theft charge; the terms of his sentencing included "Complete all 3 tiers of the New Beginnings treatment program while in jail, if qualified, and be given credit upon successful completion." Not all of the lessons stuck, as Dikken was cited for open bottle in 2011 in Chippewa County.
Court records can be accessed here.
According to a Fox News 9 report:
Shortly after the shooting, investigators revealed they believed the bloodshed was related to domestic violence and they named Dikken a person of interest.
Dikken and Kara Monson were in a relationship for three years, but the two broke up in April. Friends and loved ones say Monson had recently begun dating Panitzke, of Redwood Falls, before the two were killed.
The crime is a tragedy for three families and the victims' many friends, but fears for their safety by local citizens are finally at an end. The victims are remembered as loving parents and kind-hearted people.
Via the West Central Tribune, here's the Order of Detention for Dikken:
Criminal complaint against Andrew Dikken by West Central Tribune
Photo: Andrew Dikken's Yellow Medicine County custody photo.
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