Man sentenced to nearly 20 years for fatal shooting outside St. Paul store

A 24-year-old man received a nearly 20-year term Thursday for fatally shooting a man in the back in St. Paul weeks after coming off probation for an earlier violent crime.

E’Shaun M. Funches, of St. Paul, was sentenced in Ramsey County District Court after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and illegal gun possession in connection with the killing on Dec. 13, 2023, of Alfonzo Armstead, 30, of St. Paul.

With credit for time in jail since his arrest, Funches is expected to serve slightly more than 12 years in prison and the balance on supervised release.

Funches’ criminal history includes a sentence in Hennepin County in November 2020 for the armed robbery of a man in downtown Minneapolis, according to court records.

Funches was sentenced to 60 days in the workhouse and put on three years’ probation. He came off supervised probation on Nov. 17, 2023, and killed Armstead 3½ weeks later.

According to the murder charge and police:

A 911 call sent officers to Sunrise Grocery and Tobacco in the 400 block of W. University Avenue, where they saw Armstead outside with gunshots to the back, leg and abdomen. Emergency medical personnel took him to Regions Hospital, where he died shortly afterward.

Armstead’s girlfriend arrived and told officers he had recently been jumped by three men in front of the store.

Exterior video surveillance showed Funches exit an SUV, which was occupied by two other people, and walk swiftly toward Armstead, who was standing outside the store.

Amstead’s “back was turned to the shooter when the shooter opened fire,” the charges read. An officer in an unmarked squad car spotted Funches a couple of blocks to the south and arrested him.

A police dog found a handgun nearby in a plastic bag beneath a pile of leaves. The ammunition in the gun’s magazine matched the casings left at the scene.

Both people in the SUV that brought Funches to the store identified him to police as the person who shot Armstead.