A man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after killing someone he believed was dealing lethal drugs.
Prosecutors in Mille Lacs County, Minnesota, said Bradley Allen Weyaus admitted to killing Rodney Pendegayosh Jr., 25.
His sentencing is scheduled for July 24, but the terms of his plea agreement will largely determine his fate.
According to the agreement, he will serve 25 years and six months to 30 years and seven months in prison.
His co-defendant, girlfriend Alexis Marion Elling, pleaded guilty to aiding an offender in February 2024, and her sentencing was scheduled to take place after Weyaus’ case was resolved.
She agreed to testify against Weyaus in exchange for a five-year prison sentence suspended and up to five years of supervised probation.
According to authorities, the defendants, a couple, thought Pendegayosh had given Elling’s brother a lethal combination of fentanyl and meth.
Their crime was not typical.
“This whole thing is truly bizarre,” Mille Lacs County Sheriff Kyle Burton said in a news conference when authorities announced the charges. “This body was moved multiple places for a period of possibly up to a week before the discovery was made.”
In March 2023, a public works maintenance crew cleaning garbage discovered Pendegayosh’s remains stuffed into a tote bag along a snow-covered highway.
“They see what they believe to be a severed human foot,” the sheriff stated. They closed the tote and called the cops.
An officer on his way to the scene noticed a suspect vehicle, a white Saturn thought to be driven by Weyaus. Weyaus fled and managed to avoid capture for some time.
The officer eventually found the vehicle, which was empty but stuck in a driveway. The homeowners pointed out the suspect, who was hiding in a camper trailer on their property.
The arrest occurred. Wayaus’s duffel bag contained a hacksaw, hammer, and black tape similar to the tape found on the tote.
Other evidence pointed to the couple. Although there appeared to be no gun, the suspect vehicle contained a spent shotgun shell.
Investigators discovered a bloody carpet, gloves, and a hardware store receipt in the dumpster at the suspect’s apartment, along with Pendegayosh’s ID and credit card.
The sheriff said surveillance video shows the suspects carrying the tote bag from the apartment and loading it into a black Chevrolet Impala a few days before the body was discovered.
