A 36-year-old man in Minnesota will spend at least the next three decades behind bars for killing his wife, coldbloodedly executing her in front of the couple’s infant and toddler two years ago.
Hennepin County District Court Judge Daniel C. Moreno on Monday ordered Ryan Charles Rooney to serve a sentence of life in prison with a chance for parole after 30 years for slaying 29-year-old Samantha Boshey, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
A 12-person jury on Nov. 2 found Rooney guilty on one count of first-degree premeditated murder while committing domestic abuse with a past pattern of domestic abuse following a trial that lasted over two weeks.
During the sentencing hearing, several of Boshey’s family members read victim impact statements, Minneapolis NBC affiliate KARE reported.
“It pains me and kills me inside knowing I will never see her smile light up a room, watch her raise her kids, live her best life, and help her when she would fall like all fathers have a chance to do,” her father, Charles Boshey, reportedly said. “A big piece of me died that day she died. I will never be whole again because of what happened to my baby girl.”
Ryan Charles Rooney (Hennepin County Jail)
Boshey’s aunt also spoke, reportedly telling the court that she was “yet to forgive [Rooney] for this unspeakable act he committed upon my unarmed, helpless niece.”
Rooney declined when offered the opportunity to speak, KARE reported.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, officers in Eden Prarie, Minnesota, responded at about 10:57 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2021, to a request for a welfare check at the Residence Inn Hotel in the 7700 block of Flying Cloud Drive, where Rooney and Boshey had been staying for about 20 days with their 1 and 2-year-old children.
Hotel staffers found Rooney in the fetal position on the bed and called the police. They were not able to wake Rooney.
When police entered the room, they described it as extremely cluttered and noted it smelled strongly of urine. Rooney had “a gunshot wound under his chin and an exit wound to the top of his head.” A small child was attempting to wake Rooney while another child was in a heavily soiled crib.
Rooney allegedly had a pistol holster on him and two bags of methamphetamine. When asked where the gun was, he told police it was upstairs. On the second level of the room, police said they found Boshey lying between the foot of the bed and the wall.
“[Boshey] had a gunshot wound to the center of her chest, and an exit wound to her back,” the affidavit stated. “Victim was cold to the touch and her joints felt stiff.”
A 9 mm handgun was recovered next to her body, and a tray of methamphetamine was on the toilet and easily accessible to a small child, authorities said.
The couple had only been married over two months before Boshey was killed.
Investigators learned that less than two weeks before the shooting, police responded to the hotel over reports that Rooney was waving a gun in the hotel parking lot.
“The anonymous caller used [Boshey’s] cellphone number to call the police,” the affidavit states. “In a post-Miranda statement on November 4, 2021, [Rooney] agreed that he and [Boshey] were the only
people inside the hotel room,” police wrote. “Defendant also stated, ‘I don’t know why I shot [Victim].””
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