Inver Grove Heights Man Charged After Threatening to Kill Woman

An Inver Grove Heights man has been charged with making terroristic threats after police say a domestic violence advocate overheard him threatening to kill a woman this week.

Adam Nicholas Fournelle, 30, is charged with making terroristic threats, a felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of domestic assault, which carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Fournelle, who was arrested Monday, is free on a $7,000 bond. Among the conditions of his release is that he have no contact with the victim or enter her residence. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled Nov. 14 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

According to the criminal complaint, a domestic violence advocate at Lewis House in Eagan was on the phone with the victim Monday when the advocate heard a man in the background threaten to kill the victim. 

The advocate notified police, who approached the victim’s apartment door and listened for about a minute; they heard a woman yell, “Stop hitting me!”, according to the complaint.

Police then knocked on the door, and Fournelle answered, asking why they were there. Officers told him they had received a report that someone overheard him threatening to kill the victim; Fournelle admitted that he “threatens to kill [the victim] all the time, but that he doesn’t really mean it,” according to the complaint.

Fournelle later denied making that statement.

The victim—who was reluctant to talk to police and seemed upset that they had been called—told police that over the last two days, Fournelle had bruised her wrist and kicked her into a dresser, the complaint says. She said Fournelle told her she was “dead” while she was talking to the advocate.

Fournelle, who has a pending domestic assault charge against the same victim, told her that when she testifies in that case, she had better “back him up,” and that if she didn’t, all her property stored at his parents’ home would be damaged or kept, according to the complaint.

Fournelle reviewed the police reports in the earlier domestic assault case with the victim, pointing out “lies” and instances in which she “contradicted herself,” the victim said.

Fournelle also threatened to have his friends kill the victim and told her that her body would be found floating in the Mississippi River, the complaint says.

Fournelle denied threatening to kill the victim, but he admitted that he had reviewed the earlier police reports with her and said the case was going to be dropped. He told police that the victim was “on his side” and that she had been misquoted by police.

Fournelle, who is on probation and is not allowed to drink alcohol as one of the conditions, was legally drunk at the time of the Monday incident, with a blood-alcohol content of .17, according to the complaint.