Dates for a pretrial hearing and a jury trial were set Friday for the man accused of killing a Willernie, Minn., bar owner and teacher.
Bailey Jordan Garcia, 19, of Pine Springs is scheduled for a hearing May 13 and a jury trial beginning Oct. 5. He is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 46-year-old David Frigaard of Roseville.
Garcia made an initial appearance Friday morning in Washington County district court in Stillwater.
Frigaard, a teacher at Park High School in Cottage Grove and owner of Frigaard’s Bar in Willernie, was shot in the chest after closing his tavern for the night Jan. 24. A bullet hole was found in the rear of his truck’s passenger-side window.
Deputies encountered Garcia after responding to a report of suspicious activity near Mahtomedi Avenue and Maple Street, about a mile north of the shooting scene and Frigaard’s Bar. They arrived to find an SUV with damage consistent with crashing into a tree.
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A witness at the scene said she and her friend found Garcia inside the SUV with a rifle and ammunition. She told deputies Garcia was "acting strange," the complaint said.
After being treated at a hospital for minor injuries suffered in the crash, Garcia was taken to the Washington County Jail.
He told investigators he had gotten into a fight with his brother earlier and became angry after his father sent him to his room, the complaint said.
He said he felt suicidal and went to his closet and got a rifle and ammunition. He put them in his vehicle along with a bottle of rum and drove to the Mahtomedi Fire Department, where he said he had recently gotten a job, according to the complaint.
Once there, he said, he used a cutting tool to remove the rifle’s trigger lock and then went to fill his gas tank and cover his license plates.
After first saying he shot a few deer near Stillwater Road and Mahtomedi Avenue, Garcia admitted to aiming the rifle outside his SUV at a pickup truck at the same intersection and firing the weapon, the complaint said.
He said he had consumed three beers and a shot of rum before the incident.
Frigaard’s pickup was found near where Garcia admitted firing his rifle, the complaint said.
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Frigaard began working as an art teacher with the South Washington County school district in August 1999 and worked at Park for four years.
