Ex-boyfriend now faces intentional murder charge in Downwind case

Rose Downwind
Rose Downwind
Courtesy Bemidji Police Department

When Marchello Cimmarusti walked into the Bemidji Police Department two months ago he confessed to killing his ex-girlfriend Rose Downwind — and said it was an accident.

An autopsy showed Downwind was strangled with a ligature wire, and Cimmarusti's murder charge has been amended from second-degree murder without intent to intentional murder.

Downwind went missing in October of 2015. Family members put up hundreds of missing person posters, and law enforcement searched the countryside for her body on foot, and from the air.

The search turned up few leads until Cimmarusti confessed, leading investigators to a shallow grave where he and two friends had buried Downwind.

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At the time Cimmarusti told police he and Downwind had struggled on the front steps of the Bemidji home they once shared. He said Downwind fell, hitting her head on the wooden landing at the bottom of the stairs.

In his statement to the police, Cimmarusti claimed he checked for a pulse and found none. He said that's when he decided to cover up her death.

Court documents described the findings of an autopsy carried out by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office.

Though Downwind's body was burned before her burial, the autopsy found a ligature wire wrapped around her neck. One vertebrae in her neck was also broken, which suggests Downwind died of strangulation.

Two of Cimmarusti's friends still face aiding and abetting charges for helping to bury Downwind's body in a remote section of forest northwest of Bemidji.