Left inset: Tabitha Trescott and Justin Reinarts (GoFundMe). Right inset: Randy Zimmerman (Brown County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Minnesota home that Randy Zimmerman broke into to shoot his ex-girlfriend Tabitha Trescott and her new boyfriend Justin Reinarts (KARE/YouTube).
A Minnesota man is headed to prison after breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s house while she was home with her new boyfriend and gunning them both down with a shotgun.
“I truly am sorry,” said Randy Zimmerman, 46, as he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms on Monday for the murder of Tabitha Trescott, 32, and Justin Reinarts, 50, in November 2025, local CBS affiliate KEYC reports.
Zimmerman pleaded guilty in August to two counts of first-degree murder, murder with intent while committing a felony and murder while committing domestic abuse with a past pattern of abuse. Prosecutors dismissed premeditated murder counts as part of his plea deal.
“A lot of weight is off of our family’s shoulders, we can sleep knowing that justice has been served,” Terri Smith, Trescott’s mother, told KEYC.
Zimmerman shot and killed Trescott and Reinarts at around 4:20 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2025. Brown County authorities received a 911 call from one of Trescott’s two children on the morning she was killed, “who stated that his mom’s ex-boyfriend broke into their house and shot his mom,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release.
Authorities found two spent shotgun shells in the upstairs bedroom where the couple was killed. They each died from gunshot wounds to the head. Multiple children were inside the home during the shooting.
“I gave you a chance,” the ex-girlfriend’s son recalled Zimmerman saying to her right before he opened fire, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Minnesota NBC affiliate KARE.
The child said he was asleep and woke up to someone in the home yelling profanities. He went to investigate, and Zimmerman met him in the hallway outside his bedroom and ordered him back into the room while allegedly pointing a shotgun at him.
Zimmerman fled the Brown County home after the shootings and drove to Iowa, where he allegedly opened fire on a sheriff’s deputy during a high-speed car chase. “He pulled a shotgun out of the window during the chase and fired one shot backwards at our deputy,” Louisa County Sheriff Brandon Marquardt told Law&Crime last year.
Iowa cops arrested Zimmerman after they “pitted” his vehicle into a ditch and ran him down in a field, according to police. “He was chased … and tasered,” Marquardt said.
Zimmerman spent 12 hours on the run before being apprehended in Louisa County, Iowa.
He received credit on Monday for 345 days already served.
“If you’re in this kind of situation, please don’t think you can ever change that person, because you cannot,” Smith told KEYC. “No matter how many times they say I’m sorry it will never happen again. That I’m sorry it will never happen again is their way of saying it will be worse the next time around.”
