Who killed Gilbert Fassett? A jury convicted a man of his death in 1995, but questions remain – InForum

FORT TOTTEN, N.D. — Werner Ruemmner began giving away almost everything he owned when it seemed like new opportunities in life were finally opening up for him.

He gave away books, food, clothing, lamps, toiletries – even his Xbox and PlayStation, favorite activities he used to pass the time behind bars.

He prepared for deportation, an exile he welcomed. Then, just eight days before he was due to be released from prison, turned over to immigration authorities and put on a plane to Germany, the North Dakota Parole Board revoked Ruemmler’s parole on November 2, 2022.

In justifying their reversal of a decision made six months earlier, parole board members said they received a letter from a juror and the prosecutor who prosecuted Ruemmler, both expressing concerns about public safety if he were released.

And this despite the fact that the public prosecutor Rümmer had offered him a few days before his trial in 1995 that he should serve ten of twenty years in prison and be released on parole after six years and eight months if he behaved well.

Rümmer rejected the offer and protested his innocence. (Rümmer’s last name at the time of the trial was Kunkel, but he later changed it to his birth name Rümmer.)

It was unusual that Rümmer was released on parole after 27 years in prison. He had refused to admit to the crime that had earned him a life sentence: murder.

There was no physical evidence against Rumber. There were no eyewitnesses. The case was based entirely on circumstantial evidence and the prosecution could not prove where the murder had taken place.

Despite these shortcomings, the jury believed seven witnesses who claimed that Ruemmler confessed to the murder. Most of the witnesses were fellow inmates in prison or in custody.

Article / Devils Lake Journal

Among the witnesses was his long-time ex-girlfriend and mother of his two sons, against whom, according to Rümmer, he had filed a complaint for parental neglect.

Although witnesses said Ruemmler confessed, he steadfastly denied having anything to do with the 1986 murder in Devils Lake. He appealed three times, but his conviction was upheld based on the testimony of the confession witnesses.

Prior to his conviction, Ruemmler had an extensive criminal history, including convictions for theft, eluding police, reckless endangerment and assault on police officers.

“I was a lost person,” Rümmer said this year. “The only thing I am not is a murderer.”

Suspicion inevitably fell on Rümmer, since he was the last person to see the victim alive.

But he was not arrested until nine years after the murder – after testifying on behalf of the prosecution against a man who had been convicted partly on the basis of his testimony in a double murder in Minot that had nothing to do with the murder.

John Peltier went in search of bird cherry trees on Ski Jump Hill, a prominent hilltop in a rolling, forested hillside with a dense canopy of oak, aspen and birch trees overlooking the south shore of Devils Lake.

Ski Jump Hill is a popular tourist destination on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation and offers scenic views along Skyline Drive, with towering radio towers and the skeletal remains of an old ski jump.

While searching for bird cherries, Peltier smelled a foul odor at the bottom of the slope. As a retiree with bad knees and a heart condition, Peltier did not want to ski down the steep slope.

So he got in his car and drove to the nearby Whitehorse Hill National Game Preserve, where his nephew was biking, and returned so 15-year-old Solomon could take a look.

“Do you smell that?” he asked his nephew, according to court testimony. “It smells like something – like a dead dog or something.” Amidst some serviceberry bushes, young Peltier saw something unexpected: a corpse lying face down.

Patrick Springer / The Forum

He sped up the hill. “Uncle John, there’s a dead guy down there with his shirt pulled up.” John Peltier, a retired police officer, drove three miles west to Fort Totten and stopped at the house of James Yankton, a police officer with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A year earlier, Yankton had been credited with solving the murder of John Peltier’s son, Eddie Peltier, a former Devils Lake police officer whose body was found on a highway near the ski jump.

Soon after, investigators stormed the crime scene, where the body was found on August 10, 1986.

The body was that of a man in his 20s from Spirit Lake, wearing blue jeans, a plaid shirt and tennis shoes.

Investigators noticed a path leading to the body about 14 meters from the road, where grass was seen lying, suggesting that the body had been dragged.

Yankton noticed six holes on the back of the body, all about the size of his index finger and three to five inches apart.

A war bonnet was tattooed on his left forearm and his right trouser pocket was ripped open. According to police reports, one hand was holding a branch of a berry bush.

Post from Ramsey County District Court

The top of the scalp had been cut off and was lying several meters away from the head.

After an autopsy the next day, the body was identified based on dental records and fingerprints as 28-year-old Gilbert Fassett of Fort Totten.

Whoever killed Fassett was furious. Or wanted to send a message. The body was riddled with too many stab wounds to count; estimates ranged from 90 to over 100. Pathologists found injuries “indicative of stabbings” and “indicative of gunshot wounds,” but were unable to recover any bullets from the body.

Despite all the injuries, investigators found no blood near the body, even though it had rained in recent days.

The body was badly decomposed. The pathology report estimated that, based on his condition, the time of death had occurred seven or eight days earlier.

The pathologist who conducted the autopsy scraped off some maggots and placed them in a glass jar for examination – “silent witnesses” that were examined to estimate the time of death that would later be hotly contested.

On the last day he was seen alive, Gilbert Fassett was released from Devils Lake Prison, where he had served a two-day sentence for drunk driving.

The FBI, which was involved in the investigation because his body was found on the reservation, said Fassett was a known drug dealer.

A possible motive for his murder, according to information obtained by the FBI, was that Fassett was a “small-time drug dealer who owed everyone and squandered his drug profits.”

It also provided a possible explanation for why Fassett, who left prison with no money, was seen with a wad of cash on the night of the last day he was seen alive.

At some point before his death, a drug supplier with a “crazy” reputation had advanced Fassett 1 1⁄2 ounces of cocaine, a debt Fassett never repaid. According to the informant, he claimed that “someone had scammed him.”

Investigators received a rumor that Fassett had not repaid the supplier at least $2,000 at the time of his murder.

Fassett’s mother reported him missing on August 4, six days before his body was found. She told Devils Lake police she had heard her son was killed “up at Skyline,” the scenic road at the ski jump hill, the very place where the body was discovered days later.

For some reason, despite his mother’s fears that he had been murdered, authorities did not launch a search for Fassett.

Not only was the mother concerned that her son had been murdered, she also told the investigator, according to a police report, that she had heard that a “police officer” was responsible for her son’s death.

This suspicion was never communicated to the jury that convicted Rümmer of Fassett’s murder in 1995.