30 Years Later: Musical Event To Honor Victims Of Duluth Triple Murder

DULUTH, Minn. – Thursday, March 28, marks 30 years since a triple murder took the lives of three young men during a house party in Duluth’s Central Hillside neighborhood.

And Thursday evening, a live public musical storytelling will happen at Zeitgeist’s Teatro Theatre to talk about the history, the music, the lives, the loss and the healing since that 1994 tragedy.

The event is $15, which helps cover the venue, tech and artists.

The crime at the time was the second triple murder to happen in Duluth’s history.  Before that, it was the lynchings of three black men in 1920.

Click the video above to hear about Thursday’s event and also a lookback at a 2017 story with one of the brothers of one of the three victims, Sam Witherspoon, who was celebrating his 21st birthday when gunfire ended it all.

Below is the article from that 2017 story:

(2017 Archives) — 23 years ago, March 28, 1994, the city of Duluth would never be the same, with lives as young as 20 years old shot and killed at a house party.

To this day, Duluth has had only two triple homicides after the lynching of three black men in 1920.

FOX 21’s Dan Hanger talks with some of the people closest to this case and how it affected their daily lives forever.

Stephan Witherspoon wrote and produced a song to help in the healing process after his brother, Sam, 21, and his best friends, Peter Moore, 21, and Keith Hermanson, 20, were shot and killed at Sam’s 21st birthday party inside a hillside home.

“Nothing will ever prepare you for this. Nothing will ever prepare you for this,” explained Witherspoon. “It was a living hell.”

Authorities say the motive behind killer Todd Warren, 18, was revenge over something he believed happened to his girlfriend the night of the house party. 

“Three people who I loved dearly, you know, were snatched away and it really had a huge impact on this community and our families and there are people who are still suffering,” Witherspoon said.

For Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken, who was a young patrol officer at the time, it was his first triple homicide to investigate and his only triple homicide of that magnitude to this day.

“You’ll never remove those memories from your head. So you go through that neighborhood and you think about it. Or you look at the house and it all kind of comes back,” Tusken explained.

St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin was the lead prosecutor on the case – a case he, too, will never forget.

“Incredible pressure; but I had so much support from the family members. And my heart just broke for them the entire time. It still breaks for them today when I think about the case because I still see them in the community,” Rubin said.

During Rubin’s closing arguments, which helped seal the conviction, he likened the victims’ lives to three stones being dropped off a bridge and into water creating vibrant ripples of their lives.

“But this large boulder, the action of Todd Warren, disrupted the entire thing,” Rubin went on to explain.

It is a power perspective that would later turn into a piece of artwork from Peter Moore’s family, showing three stones in a carved hand reflecting the lives Rubin fought for in the courtroom.

“That’s always been in my office ever since. And it’s meant so much. It’s a reminder that you can do some good in this world amidst a tragedy.  And that’s a challenge,” Rubin said.

Meanwhile, 23 years after the tragedy, Witherspoon is heading the Duluth chapter of the NAACP and working to help the lives of others, especially those going through deep pain he knows all too well.

“You don’t forget, but you can forgive because it makes you move forward to live your life. We have one life to live,” Witherspoon said.