Rochester Man’s Appeal of Guilty Plea in Triple Murder Denied

St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News)- The Minnesota Court of Appeals has denied a Rochester man’s appeal to change a guilty plea he made in a case involving the 2020 murder of his pregnant girlfriend and her daughter. 

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32-year-old Renard Carter argued that his state-appointed attorney’s forced him to plead guilty to the murders of  23-year-old Kiona Foote, 2-year-old Miyona Miller, and Foote's unborn child. A motion to withdraw his guilty plea was denied in district court prior to his sentencing in December 2021. 

The three-judge panel in its decision made on Monday says, “The district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Carter’s presentence motion to withdraw his plea, ” and that Carter, “suffered no manifest injustice sufficient to render his plea constitutionally invalid.” 

Carter entered guilty pleas to the three murder charges in July 2021 but then petition the court to allow with to withdraw the pleas, claiming he had been coerced. The judge in the case denied his request after Carter underwent a psychological evaluation that determined he was mentally competent when he admitted to the charges.

Carter was given consecutive sentences of 426 months and 326 and another 326 months. The mother and daughter were found strangled to death in the northeast Rochester apartment they shared with Carter on September 13th, 2020. Court record say Carter had apparently tapped the murders and uploaded them to social media.

Carter was captured later the same day in Columbia, South Carolina, where he was located in an apartment. His return to Rochester was delayed because the arresting officer shot and wounded Carter when he emerged from the residence holding a BB gun. He's incarcerated at the Minnesota Department of Corrections Rush City facility.