Man kills daughter's suspected stalker with moose antler, police say

(NEXSTAR) – A Minnesota man showed up at the Cook County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday covered in blood and confessed to beating a 77-year-old to death, first with a shovel, then with a moose antler. The county attorney called it a "brutal attack without provocation on an elderly man."

Levi Axtell, 27, told sheriff's deputies he killed Lawrence V. Scully in his Grand Marais, Minnesota, home. Back in 2018, Axtell had accused the elderly man of stalking his 22-month-old daughter, the Star Tribune reports. In a request for a protective order, he said Scully would park his van outside his daughter's daycare and wait for her to go out on walks.

The court granted the protective order temporarily but dismissed it weeks later, according to the newspaper. Before Axtell's 2018 complaint, Scully was already a convicted sex offender. Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen confirmed to the Associated Press that Scully served a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a 6-year-old and was released in 1982.

According to court documents, Axtell confessed that he drove to Scully's house Wednesday, beat him with a shovel from the deck "15 to 20 times" and then "finished him off" with a moose antler. Scully was found with major head trauma and was already dead when first responders arrived at his home, according to WCCO-TV.

The Star Tribune reports that Axtell was intoxicated when he confessed to Cook County law enforcement. He was charged with second-degree murder. His bail was set at $1 million in a court hearing on Friday.