Aaron D. Dunn, 25, had a history of domestic assault and was the prime suspect in the shooting death last week of a 22-year-old man on St. Paul's East Side.
But Dunn didn't live to stand trial.
On Friday, the Ramsey County medical examiner's office identified Dunn as the man whose body was pulled from the Mississippi River in St. Paul Wednesday.
Asked whether police believed the death to be a suicide, police spokesman Tom Walsh said: "We're not investigating his death as a crime."
The medical examiner's office has yet to rule on a cause of death, and could not say how long the body had been in the river, spokesman Don Gorrie said.
But the body was decomposed, he added.
A relative of Dunn's declined to comment Friday.
Police had been looking for Dunn in connection with the June 9 death of Antonio Evans, who was shot in the head during a dispute at an apartment building across from Bruce Vento Elementary School in the 400 block of Case Avenue.
According to a search warrant filed last week, Dunn was quickly identified by a witness as the suspected gunman, and a subsequent search of Dunn's girlfriend's residence uncovered a bloody shirt, a shotgun and ammunition.
Last year, Dunn pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to felony theft of a motor vehicle in a case that involved another woman with whom he'd had a relationship. The criminal complaint in the case said that he threw a phone at her, hit her and pulled her hair before taking off in her 1998 Mercury Sable.
At the time of the incident, Dunn was under a court order to have no contact with the woman, having been accused of assaulting her in January 2006, the complaint said.
In the days following Evans' death, police appealed to the public for help in finding Dunn and a second man who later was arrested but released pending further investigation.
The only person charged in the case has been a 16-year-old girl, who is accused of aiding an offender, a spokeswoman for the Ramsey County Attorney's Office said Friday.
Dunn's whereabouts did not become clear until Wednesday afternoon, when a body was seen in the river near Lilydale Regional Park and later recovered near the Smith Avenue High Bridge by the Ramsey County sheriff's water patrol.
Walsh said that police still plan to present information to the county attorney's office to see whether investigators had sufficient evidence to charge Dunn with the shooting.
There is no urgency now, however, he added.
"Our suspect is dead," Walsh said.
Anthony Lonetree • 651-298-1545
