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Castration Murder of Mark Shemukenas Solved After 32 Years
Saturday, Oct. 17 2009 @ 10:29AM
Thumbnail image for Mark Shemukenas.jpg
Mark Shemukenas had his throat slashed and his stomach cut open
​Mark Shemukenas, 30, a potter by trade, was found dead in his St. Paul, Minnesota apartment in 1977. According to police, his hands were bound with electrical wire, his throat slashed, stomach cut open, and he had been castrated. A two-pronged fork had also been stuck in his chest. 

At the time, police suspected that he had been killed by a gay lover, and they handed out posters with his photo to gay bars in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Cops figured that a sexual encounter with another man may have somehow led to the violence...

Richard IrelandA.jpg
Richard Ireland had long been a suspect, but it would take DNA evidence to lock him up
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Although there were leads, none of them panned out until 1983, when Richard Hubert Ireland Jr. groped and kissed a 15-year-old boy in a sauna. Ireland was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. His fingerprints were taken and matched one lifted from a cabinet in Shemukenas' apartment.

But hair samples taken from Ireland and compared to those found in Shemukenas' apartment did not match, and Ireland denied knowing the victim. There just wasn't enough evidence, the cops said, to link him to the murder. The case began to look like it wasn't going anywhere.  Until last summer, that is, when police reopened the investigation after a newly-formed cold-case unit analyzed blood on scissors found at the crime scene.

The murder was very brutal and "very bloody," and "several instruments were used" to carry out the crime, according to Sgt. Anita Muldoon of the St. Paul Police Department. Five bloody knives were found in the apartment. When that city's cold case unit began looking through unsolved cases last year, Shemukenas' murder stood out as one that seemed worthy of reopening. It didn't hurt that investigators already had Ireland, now 59, in mind.

Police began looking for Ireland, and found him living in Duluth where they took a saliva sample from him. Afterward, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension crime lab analyzed his saliva and compared his DNA to the blood found on the scissors from the crime scene. It matched, and police returned to Duluth in July. Ireland, however, had already split.

Investigators found him on October 12 living in a halfway house. He was also being treated for substance abuse, a fact that likely helped put the cops onto his trail.

At his first court appearance the next day, Ireland looked startled, and kept his head down during most of the proceeding.  Afterward, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said she believes there is sufficient evidence to convict Ireland at trial if he doesn't cop a plea deal first.

"This horrific crime was solved through a combination of superb investigative work by the cold case unit and the power of DNA forensics," Gaertner said.  "It is a great day for justice."

Shemukenas' murder was a milestone of sorts because it became the first of the St. Paul Police Department's cold case unit's 125 cases it is reeximaning since being formed in 2008 as a result of federal funding.


Tags: Minnesota