On the week before Christmas 2022, Saint Paul police responded to a 911 call and found 32‑year‑old nurse Alex Pennig lying face up in her studio apartment with a single gunshot wound to her left temple. Matthew Ecker, a nurse practitioner who had driven from hours away, had placed the call and let officers into the building. Ecker told them Alex had taken a gun into the bathroom and shot herself; he said he had broken down the door after hearing the shot and tried to stop the bleeding. He acknowledged moving the handgun afterward and later told detectives he had set it on Alex’s chest to make it look like she had shot herself.
Investigators saw inconsistencies in Ecker’s account and in the scene. The handgun was found on Alex’s left shoulder with her left hand on it, though she was right‑handed. Detectives noted the bathroom door had been forced and found a small round piece of the door lock under Alex’s head; forensics said that piece could only have ended up there if the door had been forced open while Alex was still alive. Security footage from the apartment building showed Alex and Matthew walking into the lobby together, then leaving and coming back; in the clip Alex appeared upset and stomped back into the building, and the time stamp placed Matthew’s 911 call about 20 minutes after they’d returned. Neighbors and officers said the scene “didn’t look right” to them.
Ecker told police he had driven to Alex’s apartment after she called him, saying she had been in an argument with her boyfriend, Shane Anderson, and feared for her safety. Ecker said he brought his gun to protect her. Surveillance from a bar that night showed Ecker and Alex at the same bar as Shane, and footage captured an earlier altercation in which Shane and Ecker fought; witnesses confirmed a physical encounter there. Shane denied being violent with Alex and said their relationship was affectionate; he later cooperated with detectives. Friends and family described Alex as lively and, though she had a past struggle with prescription addiction and a prior suicide attempt years earlier, as someone who’d gotten help and built a life — including earning a nursing degree in 2019.
At the apartment, detectives found alcohol and six prescription bottles belonging to Alex. Several of those prescriptions had been written or refilled by Matthew Ecker, a licensed nurse practitioner; Ecker’s prescribing to someone who was not his patient raised ethical questions, though not necessarily a legal violation. Text messages showed Alex told Ecker days earlier that she had needed a “mental health break” and wasn’t feeling hopeful, but friends and family argued those messages did not indicate impending suicide. Investigators examined phone records and sought access to Alex’s phone and to messages they suspected might have shed light on her state of mind; at least initially, they could not access her phone.
Forensic testing returned mixed findings. There was gunshot residue on Alex’s left hand and her DNA was on the gun; testing did not find gunshot residue on Ecker and no Ecker DNA was found on the weapon. Detectives said Ecker admitted touching the gun and moving it, and they argued he had wiped it before placing it on Alex. Prosecutors pointed to the lock piece found under Alex’s head as evidence the bathroom door had been forced open while she was still alive, consistent with the idea that Matthew broke in and shot her. They also focused on his changing accounts — initially saying he broke the bathroom door after the shot, later admitting he’d moved the gun and placed it on Alex — and on physical details such as how Alex’s body was positioned in relation to the ajar door, which detectives said would be unlikely had she shot herself and then been discovered in the way Ecker described.
Ecker and his family maintained his innocence. They said he had been a friend trying to protect Alex after she reported a domestic dispute with her boyfriend and that he had a history of helping her financially and otherwise. Defense lawyers argued that the physical evidence — gunshot residue on Alex’s hand, Alex’s DNA on the gun, no residue on Ecker — supported the conclusion that Alex fired the gun herself, and they proposed alternative explanations for the lock fragment and the body position. They also contested motive, calling prosecution suggestions that Ecker wanted to hide an affair or avoid his wife learning of a relationship speculative. Ecker’s defense introduced medical opinions and called the medical examiner’s ruling that the manner of death could not be determined; they said the jury could not find homicide beyond a reasonable doubt given the inconclusive forensic picture.
Detectives pressed their case that Ecker had forced the bathroom door, shot Alex, and later staged the scene. They pointed to the building’s lobby video showing Alex’s demeanor that night, to inconsistencies in Ecker’s accounts of when and how he called 911, and to the discovery of the small metal lock piece under Alex’s head after she was moved — which, according to the prosecution, could only have ended up there while she was still alive, indicating the door had been forced open before the shot. Investigators also emphasized that Ecker had prescribed multiple controlled medications to Alex despite her history of addiction and that he had been the only person present to explain events in the apartment.
The medical examiner’s office ultimately ruled Alex’s manner of death “could not be determined.” That ambiguity influenced the defense strategy at trial, with experts testifying to the difficulty of distinguishing suicide from homicide in certain circumstances. Still, prosecutors argued the totality of the physical evidence and Ecker’s actions and statements supported a murder theory.
Ecker was charged with second‑degree murder. His trial began in February 2024. After deliberation, the jury convicted Ecker of second‑degree murder. Family and friends of Alex expressed relief at the verdict, while Ecker’s family reacted with shock and vowed to appeal, maintaining his innocence. In April 2024, the judge sentenced Matthew Ecker to 360 months in prison — 30 years.
Alex Pennig’s parents, friends, and community continue to grieve and to remember her as a caring person who loved animals and had overcome past struggles to build a life and a nursing career. For them, the trial and sentence provided an element of accountability but not the closure they sought; for Ecker’s supporters, questions remain about evidence and motive. The case — examined on national television and in local reporting — raised difficult forensic, legal, and ethical questions about how investigators reconstruct events, how medical evidence is interpreted, and how the pasts and relationships of the people involved are weighed in court.