Minneapolis man charged for fatally shooting his friend

A Minneapolis man was charged with second-degree murder for fatally shooting his friend who told police the shooter’s name as he was dying, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.

Brent Buchan, 23, was charged with intentional second-degree murder in the shooting death of 25-year-old Joshua-Lee Boyce of Minneapolis. Buchan is expected to make his first court appearance Thursday.

According to the criminal complaint, at about 11:55 p.m. October 25, ShotSpotter indicated that shots were fired in an alley behind 1706 Fremont Avenue North. Police were soon sent to a house a block away in the 1700 block of Emerson Avenue North where Boyce was bleeding in the doorway of his father’s house. He told police the name of the man who shot him was Buchan, “my dying breath.”

Boyce was taken to the hospital where he died the next evening from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Boyce’s father told police that his son was with him until shortly before the shooting. Boyce went to buy marijuana from Buchan, with whom he had been fighting recently. Buchan thought Boyce was involved in the murder of a friend of Buchan’s, but Boyce thought the problem had been resolved, the complaint states.

A surveillance video recorded the murder. Boyce got out of a car parked in the alley and started walking south. Seconds later, Buchan got out of the car and started following Boyce, then pulled out a gun and started shooting. The video picked up the sound of screams and Boyce saying, “I swear it wasn’t me Brenty.”

Police finally found Buchan Monday and arrested him. He admitted his nickname is Brenty but at first denied having any contact with Boyce that night. He was shown Facebook Messenger conversations with Boyce setting up the meeting that evening, according to the complaint and he admitted they were his.

View the criminal complaint against Buchan (PDF).