A former mayor and deputy of a small town in Turner County has been charged with three counts of murder, following the shootings of three people Monday evening, according to a news release from the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office.
Jay Ostrem, 64, was booked into the Minnehaha County Jail Tuesday morning in connection with the Centerville shooting, which the release said happened around 10 p.m. Monday evening.
Court documents state the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office dispatch center received a call at 9:44 p.m. from a man identifying himself as Zach Frankus, who reported a shooting at a residence in Centerville.
Frankus said his brother was shot and killed by a man armed with a shotgun, adding that the shooter returned home. Documents state that after some time, Frankus told the dispatcher he had been shot and eventually stopped talking.
Authorities responded to the scene, where a Game Fish and Parks officer saw Ostrem leaving the home identified at the scene of the shooting. Documents say Ostrem initially ignored orders to stop before lying on the ground.
Documents indicate Ostrem was bleeding from his left hand and smelled of alcohol, and had in his possession a .380 handgun and an AR-style rifle, as well as spent shotgun shells and a rifle shell casing.
Authorities found three men dead inside the home. Court documents identify them as 26-year-old Paul Frankus, 21-year-old Zach Frankus and 35-year-old Timothy Richmond.
When authorities went to Ostrem’s nearby home, documents say they contacted his wife, who said that on May 23, she and Paul Frankus were drinking together when he forcibly kissed her and exposed his genitals.
Ostrem’s wife said she told Ostrem about the incident on the evening of May 27, which caused him to “run out of the house angry,” documents state. She told police he didn’t say anything about where he was going and didn’t leave armed – although she said he had weapons inside the house, and perhaps in his vehicle.
Witnesses living nearby described a chaotic scene Monday evening, with a large law enforcement presence arriving to investigate.
Fred Holmberg said he was “puzzled” by the events and said a shooting in the small town was unusual. Resident Mark Weets agreed.
“Never in a million years would I have imagined something like this would happen,” he said.
“Jay Ostrem was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and law enforcement secured the scene,” Attorney General Marty Jackley said in the release. “There is no longer any threat to the public.”
The release states that the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation will lead the investigation, through agencies including the Centerville Police Department, South Dakota Highway Patrol, South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, the Beresford Police Department, the Viborg Police Department and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department. and the Turner County Sheriff’s Department are also involved.
Centerville has fewer than 1,000 residents, according to the 2020 census. The city was named Community of the Year last month by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
Who is Jay Ostrem?
With 20 years of law enforcement experience, Ostrem played a role in helping the city overcome state-level scrutiny when the city’s then-police chief faced investigating an unnamed crime publicly in 2006 while working for the city’s police department on weekends after a time when the city had little or no law enforcement, records show. That former police chief, Nolan Clark, later pleaded guilty to drunken driving in 2007 and Ostrem then stopped working weekends.
Ostrem, a native of Gillette, Wyoming, was also a Turner County Sheriff’s Office investigator in 2007 and a deputy in 2010, according to Argus Leader archives. He participated in the 2010 trial of Ethan Johns, who was convicted of murdering sheriff’s deputy Chad Mechels and sentenced to life in prison.
He was also at the center of a two-year legal battle for Centerville between 2010 and 2012, when the city’s former police chief filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ostrem, who was then the former mayor. He was mayor in 2010, records show.
The two men settled the lawsuit, but former chief Rachel Kopman had claimed she was “repeatedly inundated with sexually inappropriate comments and remarks from Ostrem” during her tenure. Neither commented on the settlement at the time, according to Argus Leader archives.
Ostrem’s first appearance is scheduled for Wednesday at 3 p.m.
− Argus Leader visual journalist Samantha Laurey contributed to this report.
News Source : www.argusleader.com
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