Couple charged with attempted murder in shooting at supervised parenting center
A St. Paul couple are charged with first-degree premeditated attempted murder in the shooting of a woman outside a supervised parenting center in Minneapolis.
The attack appears to have stemmed from a long-running child custody dispute between Nicole Lenway, 33, and Timothy Allen Amacher, 41, the father of Lenway’s son.
Lenway was about to pick up the 5-year-old from FamilyWise on University Avenue on April 20 when authorities say Colleen Purificacion Larson, 24, shot Lenway in the arm and neck.
Lenway suffered a through-and-through gunshot wound to her arm as well as multiple internal injuries including a perforated lung. She remains hospitalized, but is expected to survive. Lenway was unable to speak to investigators, but provided information to them in writing.
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Prosecutors say Larson lives with Amacher. Both are charged with attempted first-degree murder. Amacher faces an additional felony charge of aiding an offender.
According to the criminal complaints, Lenway has full custody of their son, and a family court judge ordered recently that Amacher may only visit him in a supervised setting.
On the day of the attack, Amacher was visiting his son inside FamilyWise while Larson allegedly drove Amacher's new Dodge Ram pickup truck to the facility, scouted out the building, then “wearing all black, a hood, gloves and a medical mask” hid behind a fence until Lenway got out of her vehicle. Prosecutors say Larson was recorded on surveillance video raising a gun at Lenway, but the shooting itself happened just outside the camera’s field of view.
Amacher spoke with police after the shooting but before his arrest. Prosecutors say he “spent a large portion of the interview describing how he is a victim of family court, [the Minneapolis Police Department,] and [Lenway’s] behavior.” When police asked Amacher if he knew who would have shot Lenway, Amacher said the attack was likely connected to her job as an MPD forensic scientist.
According to the criminal complaint, investigators learned that in February, Amacher “propositioned one of his friends to kill” Lenway in exchange for $50,000. Prosecutors say during a search of Larson and Amacher’s home, investigators found cartridge casings from a .380 handgun that match those recovered from the shooting scene.
Prosecutors also said that since 2019, Amacher made 10 reports to police that Lenway and her boyfriend were abusing the child, but “all the reports were deemed unfounded.” During an investigation of one of those allegations, the boy told a social worker that Amacher “had instructed him to lie about being abused.”
Documents from the child custody case show that Amacher and Lenway met in 2012 when she was a client at his martial arts and fitness studio and they began dating later that year.
In a 2021 order in the child custody case, family court Judge Mark Ireland wrote that he was concerned about the boy’s mental health because of Amacher’s “constant unfounded accusations of abuse” by Lenway, and that Amacher is “conditioning the child to believe he is being hurt” by his mother and her boyfriend.
Ireland also found that Lenway was the victim of domestic abuse, including a 2015 incident when Amacher grabbed her by the hair as she tried to leave his home, and another in 2018 where Amacher blocked Lenway from leaving his office for more than 90 minutes.
Amacher and Larson are scheduled to make their first court appearances Tuesday afternoon. They are being held in the Hennepin County Jail on $1 million bond each.
A GoFundMe for Lenway has raised more than $60,000.