The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

May 13, 2008

Waseca murder trial moved

Zabawa to be tried in Rochester

By Dan Nienaber

WASECA — A trial for the man accused of breaking into a Waseca County farmhouse and using a shotgun inside to shoot three people will be moved to Rochester, an Olmsted County District Court judge has ruled.

Judge Joseph Bueltel also issued orders last week denying two other motions by 26-year-old Michael Stanley Zabawa, including motions to have Zabawa’s first-degree murder indictment dismissed and to keep jurors from hearing his statements to investigators shortly after the Feb. 3, 2007, shootings of Hilary Kruger, Tracy Kruger and the couple’s 13-year-old son, Alec.

Hilary Kruger survived the shooting and could be a witness at Zabawa’s trial. Her son, Zak, had been staying with a friend that night.

Tracy, 40, and Alec Kruger were pronounced dead when Waseca police officers and Waseca County sheriff’s deputies arrived at their house south of town just before 3:30 a.m. Alec had called 911 at 3:23 a.m. to report an intruder had shot his parents, but his call was cut short by what a dispatcher described as a gun blast.

A pre-trial hearing has been scheduled for May 21 for Zabawa. It will be the first hearing for his case since an omnibus hearing in September. He has been charged with first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree murder while committing a felony and second-degree murder and has remained jail since he was arrested the day of the murders.



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