Duluth police investigators are making progress and working "in earnest" to solve a homicide case in the city's East Hillside neighborhood last week, Police Chief Mike Tusken said Thursday.
No arrests have been made and police have not publicly identified a motive, but Tusken said investigators are now confident the crime was not random - a determination they were not initially able to make.
The victim, 22-year-old William Andrew Grahek, was fatally shot in his residence at 510 E. 11th St. at about 2 p.m. on Feb. 14. Grahek, a Twin Cities native and the son of a St. Paul police sergeant, was a student at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Tusken said investigators have been working around the clock, putting in 16-hour days on the case. While the department's Violent Crimes Unit is leading the inquiry, investigators from other units - including sex crimes and property crimes - also are taking on increased duties, the chief said.
"We pool our resources for cases that need to take priority," Tusken told the News Tribune. "There are a lot of leads to chase and follow up, so we've got our full complement of investigative staff on it."
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Compounding the situation is the fact that the shooting was the sixth in Duluth in a span of 25 days - though it was the first in that time to result in a fatality. Two of those earlier shooting cases also remain unsolved.
Tusken has said the string of incidents has amounted to an "anomaly" and that there are no apparent common motives or connections between any of the cases.
Coming at the heels of the unprecedented rash of gun violence in the city, Grahek's death prompted responses from Mayor Emily Larson, neighborhood residents and university officials and students.
Grahek was studying computer science and criminology at UMD, was a member of the Duluth-based U.S. Army Reserve 312th Engineer Company and played for the university's Fighting Penguins club rugby team.
"He was a social butterfly," friend Sarah Welle told the News Tribune last week. "He got along with literally everyone. ... None of us can believe it's real and he's gone."
Tusken on Thursday acknowledged the enormous pressure his department is facing the solve the case.
"At this point, especially in a homicide investigation, we become the voice of Will," he said. "We want to bring justice to the community and to the victim and hold the offender accountable for this murder."
