Apple Valley Man Pleads Guilty In Girlfriend's Death
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A 41-year-old man has pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the 2017 death of his girlfriend.
Uriah David Schulz, currently residing in Apple Valley, was sentenced to the statutory maximum of 15 years in prison. His girlfriend, 41-year-old Elizabeth Victoria Perrault of Burnsville, died in November 2017. Her body was found in a holding pond south of the Minnesota River in April 2018.
According to the criminal complaint, a fisherman called 911 in April 2018 and reported finding what he believed to be a dead body near the Interstate 35W bridge in Burnsville. Police found a badly decomposed body wearing a bathrobe and wrapped in a blanket, later identified as Perrault by dental records. A police investigation revealed several puncture holes in the robe tested positive for blood.
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Blood stains were found on the bedroom carpet, carpet pad and subflooring of Perrault's apartment, where Schulz was living at the time. Blue luminescence also showed the shape of a human body on the floor.
Though Schulz initially denied his involvement, he admitted Thursday in court that he and Perrault had been fighting, he blacked out and then found her body when he awoke. He also acknowledged wrapping her body in a blanket and taking her to the area where she was found.
The Hennepin County medical examiner determined Perrault's cause of death as a homicide. Blunt force trauma was found on the right side of her face, with bone fractures around her eye and cheek.
Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said Schulz's sentence is an aggravated upward departure of 70 months due to the concealment of Perrault's body.