Minnesota Prison Inmate Admits to Involvement in Austin Murder

Austin, MN (KROC-AM News) - A presentence investigation has been ordered for one of the three men charged with a deadly drive-by shooting in Austin last summer.

24-year-old Manamany Abella today entered a guilty plea to a charge of aiding an offender-accomplice after the fact for his involvement in the crime. In exchange, Mower County prosecutors dropped two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of second-degree attempted murder, and a drive-by shooting charge.

According to the criminal complaint in the case, Albella was in an SUV that was the source of the gunfire that killed the driver of another vehicle and wounded two other people. The court document says Austin police officers learned of the shooting when they responded to a report of a traffic crash on the night of June 9, 2023 involving a vehicle that had left a road and collided with a vacant house.

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The man driving the car was pronounced dead at the scene, while his passengers were transported to the Mayo Clinic Health System Hospital in Austin before being transferred to St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester for further care. One of the passengers had a gunshot wound to his upper arm and a woman was shot in the abdomen.

The charges also say a man on a motorcycle witnessed the crash. He said he followed the SUV after it fled the scene of the alleged shooting at a high rate of speed. The man said he cut off his pursuit after the occupants of the SUV fired multiple gunshots at him before entering the eastbound lanes of I-90.

The two other men charged in the case, Cham Oman and Jenup Chop, are awaiting trial.

Abella is scheduled to be sentenced in August. His plea agreement includes a recommendation for a 10 year prison sentence.

He is currently serving a 5 year prison sentence for a previous conviction for being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm stemming from a shooting in Austin in 2019.

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