Police: Man Convicted Of Hiding Girlfriend's Body, Now Charged With Murder
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Minneapolis man previously convicted of hiding his girlfriend's body is now facing murder charges in her death.
On Monday, 35-year-old Joshua Dow was charged with second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, Adelle Jensen.
According to the criminal complaint, Jensen's parents, along with Dow, went to a Minneapolis police station to report her missing on November 18, 2015.
Dow told police that he last saw Jensen that morning after she walked away from him after spending the evening at a downtown club.
Dow's brother later told police that his brother ordered him at gunpoint to help transport Jensen's body to a warehouse where Dow had worked. Dow told his brother that Jensen had shot herself in front of him in their home and that he needed help removing the bloody couch, according to the complaint.
When police arrived at the warehouse, the body was gone.
According to police, Dow admitted to disposing of the body but would not say where and said Jensen had shot herself.
Dow pleaded guilty to first-degree sale of drugs and the gross misdemeanor charge of interference with a dead body on February 19, 2016. He was scheduled to be released from prison in February, 2020.
RELATED: Family Of Adelle Jensen Wants Closure, Justice
"This is still a difficult case because no one has ever been able to find Ms. Jensen's body," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said. "But thanks to the persistence of Minneapolis police homicide investigators and the unearthing of new evidence, we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Dow committed second-degree murder."
Freeman says there's no one dramatic piece of evidence that led to the murder charges, but rather a combination of re-interviews of witnesses, additional forensic evidence and statements Dow has made to others over the past three years.
Of which includes a review of Dow's text messages from Nov. 11 to Nov. 22 of 2015 that indicates that he and Jensen had been fighting.
"It had turned physical and she said she would buy a plane ticket and leave town," said the Hennepin County Attorney's office.
According to the complaint, Dow responded that he would take custody of their daughter and Jensen would never see the girl again.
Police say Dow was also seen at the warehouse on Nov. 22 washing plastic sheeting. According to the complaint, Dow told the employee that he had been called in to clean up a sewage backup.
Later on that night, another witness reported seeing Dow pushing a box from the warehouse loading dock into a Chevy pickup truck that Jensen had rented days before. The box looked heavy, the complaint said.
Police would later learn that Dow had dismembered Jensen in another room of the warehouse.
If convicted on second-degree murder, Dow could serve 40 years in prison.
