Suspect charged in Waseca double murder

(AP) - A southern Minnesota man charged Monday with killing a father and his son and injuring the mother of the family said the slayings were accidental and happened after he was confronted by the father, who he said was wielding a shotgun.

Michael S. Zabawa, 24, of Matawan, was charged in Waseca County District Court with two counts of second-degree intentional murder. Bail was set at $2 million.

Zabawa is accused of breaking into the rural Waseca home of Tracy and Hilary Kruger early Saturday morning and killing Tracy Kruger, 40, and his son, Alec, 13. Hilary Kruger, 41, was wounded in the upper torso and remained in critical condition Monday afternoon at a Twin Cities hospital.

According to a criminal complaint, Zabawa admitted that he broke into the Kruger's rural home but said Tracy Kruger confronted him with a shotgun and that Kruger was accidentally shot during a struggle for the weapon.

He also said the gun accidentally discharged and wounded Hilary Kruger and then went off again after he dropped it to flee, striking Alec.

Police believe the shootings happened after Zabawa's vehicle went into the ditch and became stuck outside the Kruger home. Zabawa went to the Kruger residence, got into their SUV and tried to pull his vehicle out of the ditch, but when that didn't work he went into the house, where he was confronted by Tracy Kruger, the complaint said.

Hilary Kruger, however, painted a different picture for police, according to the complaint.

She told an officer that her husband was shot by a tall, thin man with a long gun and that she told Alec to call police after her husband was shot upstairs.

She said the shooter then went downstairs and then came back up again and shot her and Alec, the complaint said.

Another officer who responded to the 911 call found a shotgun leaning against an upstairs bedroom door and spent and unspent shotgun shells littering the floor at the top of the stairs.

He found Alec dead in a bed while Hilary Kruger also lay on a bed, critically wounded. Tracy Kruger was found dead on an upstairs floor.

Zabawa was arrested hours later at his home in Matawan.

Zabawa was charged with shoplifting in 2001 in Freeborn County and drunken-driving in Steele County in 2004 and Waseca County in December 2006. In 2004, he was convicted of felony theft and criminal damage to property in Lake County, according to state court documents.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)