escapee-angela mink

DICKINSON, N.D. (AP) — Four people accused of robbing a video store and hiding in a rural garage before ending the standoff in a fusillade of gunfire have pleaded not guilty to charges they plotted to commit robbery and murder.

After a preliminary hearing Monday, Southwest District Judge Zane Anderson ruled that prosecutors had assembled enough evidence to put the four on trial. No trial date was set; Tom Henning, the Stark County state’s attorney, said a trial may not be held until early next year.

Ashton Mink, 23; his wife, Jacquelin Mink, 26; his sister, Angela Mink, 25; and her boyfriend, Joshua Southwick, 27, were captured June 6 on a Stark County ranch near Gladstone in southwestern North Dakota.

Southwick was serving a life sentence for the murder of Micahel Bryant of Elkmont in 2003.

All four defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and murder, while Ashton Mink and Jacquelin Mink are charged with attempted murder and a second count of conspiracy to commit murder.

Authorities said the 14-hour standoff ended when Ashton and Jacquelin Mink charged out of the garage firing pistols at police, who responded with rifle fire. The Minks were wounded, although Terry Oestreich, a Stark County sheriff’s detective, said Monday that Jacquelin Mink’s chest wound was self-inflicted. The Minks both had pistols in their hands, and Ashton Mink had two other guns and ammunition clips in his pockets, Oestreich said.

Southwick and Angela Mink surrendered before the shooting began, leaving the garage through a separate door, Oestreich said.

Authorities said the four had been involved in robbing a Dickinson video store the night before, taking $1,459 in cash and a number of DVDs. During a chase, someone in the vehicle carrying the four fired a bullet through the windshield of a pursuing Highway Patrol car. The trooper was not hurt.

Police said Ashton Mink and Southwick had escaped an Alabama prison two weeks before, with help from Angela and Jacquelin Mink. Oestreich testified that the group was believed to be headed to Canada.

Amanda McNamee, a Dickinson police investigator, said she believed Southwick and Angela Mink robbed the video store at gunpoint just before midnight June 5.

Southwick and Angela Mink wore masks, she said, but the video store employees identified clothing belonging to the pair. McNamee said the two clerks did not agree on Southwick’s identity, but she said Southwick was carrying $192 in cash when he was apprehended, while Mink had $808.

Attorneys for Ashton and Jacquelin Mink argued their clients could not be linked to the robbery or any conspiracy.

The attorneys for all four defendants said the gunshot that hit the patrol car — the basis for the first charge of conspiracy to commit murder — could have been fired spontaneously, without any agreement among the four beforehand. Oestreich said authorities don’t know who shot at the patrol car.

The added charges against Ashton and Jacquelin Mink resulted from the shooting at police at the end of the standoff. Ashton Mink’s lawyer, Jay Greenwood, of Dickinson, suggested the Minks were trying to “commit suicide by cop” — that is, provoking officers into shooting them — and not trying to hit anyone. Out of more than a dozen bullets fired, only one apparently hit a police vehicle where two snipers were stationed, he said.

Anderson said the prosecution’s evidence was sufficient to put the four on trial, citing “ample circumstantial evidence” that they were acting in concert