Family has identified the person found dead within the wreckage of last week’s house explosion in South St. Paul because the homeowner’s 42-year-old son.
Nhu Richards wrote on a fundraising page that firefighters pulled the body of her brother Ryan James Richards from the “heartbreaking aftermath” of Thursday morning’s explosion and fire that leveled their mother’s home on town’s south end, just south of Interstate 494.
Fire officials haven’t said what they consider caused the explosion — only that it stays under investigation — and the Hennepin County medical expert’s office has not released a cause or manner of the person’s death.
Nhu Richards wrote on GoFundMe last week that donations will go toward paying for her brother’s funeral and look after their 77-year-old mother, Ester Richards, who’s a paraplegic. She was not home on the time of the explosion.
“As we grapple with the pain and loss, we’re left with uncertainty in regards to the full extent of the tragedy and the associated fee that can befall on my mom,” Nhu Richards wrote on the GoFundMe page, which has raised greater than $10,000.
In 2013, Ryan Richards was arrested for shooting and critically wounding his mother in a St. Paul home where two years later he attacked his friend with a samurai sword. The slashing left the victim with severe lacerations to her shoulder and wrist.
Richards was not charged within the 2013 shooting. A police investigation determined “he shot his mother by chance, pondering she was an intruder,” Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman, said in 2015.
Reports of explosion
A call got here in at 6:18 a.m. on Thursday with reports of an explosion and a hearth at the house within the 1200 block of South Ninth Avenue. Firefighters extinguished the hearth quickly, then found the deceased man in the house’s attached garage, officials said.
Neighbor Mike Schuno said Thursday that he heard a “massive boom,” which knocked glasses out of his cupboard, after which two more explosions. Ester Richards had lived at the house along with her son, Schuno said, adding he’d never met them.
Dakota County public records show Richards bought the one-story, four-bedroom home in July 2018; it was in-built 2012.
“Within the wake of losing all the things in the home,” Nhu Richards wrote on GoFundMe, “these funds will play a considerable role in helping my mother rebuild what was lost, allowing her to regain somewhat a way of comfort and stability.”
Neighboring homes were damaged from each the explosion and the warmth of the hearth.
Earlier arrest
Ryan Richards was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault within the May 1, 2013, shooting of his then 66-year-old mother at her home within the 400 block of East Robie Street on St. Paul’s West Side. Richards told police he’d been asleep in bed when he thought there was an intruder and he fired a gun, by chance shooting his mother, Ernster said. His mother backed up Richards’ account, and after an investigation, police closed the case, Ernster said.
A case was not presented to the Ramsey County attorney’s office for possible charges, spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said Monday.
Two and a half years after the shooting, Richards slashed his 43-year-old friend with a sword after the 2 had been drinking vodka on the West Side home. Richards pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was given a seven-year prison sentence in June 2016.