Pioneer Press reports…
“The associate pastor of a Minneapolis evangelical church was convicted Friday of killing a man who spent his last evening alive having drinks with the pastor’s estranged wife.
A Hennepin County District Court jury found Derek Griffin, 41, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for last spring’s shooting of Kristopher Miller.
Miller, 27, a well-liked staff member at Minneapolis’ North High School, was the father of two young girls.
Jurors deliberated about six hours before convicting Griffin of premeditated murder, which carries a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release. The jury also found him guilty of a second count of first-degree murder that accused him of killing Miller in a drive-by shooting.
A date for Griffin’s sentencing has not been set.
In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman called Griffin “a man who has caused so much pain” and lamented that the “toxic combination of jealousy and a handgun left a good man dead and the North High community, and Mr. Miller’s family, grief-stricken.”
Griffin was one of four associate ministers of True Vine Missionary Baptist Church, a congregation headed by his father, the Rev. Jessie Griffin.
He was charged with murder after the May 10 shooting of Miller at the end of a night in which Miller had had drinks with Griffin’s estranged wife, who, like Miller, worked for the Minneapolis public school district.
Investigators said Griffin was jealous. On the night of the murder, Miller and Griffin’s wife and two friends had drinks at an Elks Club on Plymouth Avenue.
As they ended their evening and walked out of the club, the woman pointed out a white Cadillac across the street and told the others, “There is my ex-husband stalking me again.”
The Griffins were married in March 2002; he filed for divorce in May 2010. The case was later dismissed after neither showed up at a hearing.
Although Griffin had a girlfriend in St. Paul, he and his estranged wife had recently argued over text messages he found on her phone, witnesses told police. Griffin thought the messages were proof she was having an affair with an employee of the Elks Club.
As Miller walked the woman to her car, he hugged her and said goodnight. He then got in his car and drove home alone.
Moments later, residents of Miller’s neighborhood called police to say they had heard gunshots. Family members found Miller dead on his porch, shot twice with a .38-caliber weapon.
A neighbor told investigators a white Cadillac had backed down the street and sped away.
Miller was an associate educator at North High School, where the principal called him “the quasi-dean of students” and students and staff held him in high regard.”
