MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA: Harrowing details have come to light after a woman named Nicki Lenway was shot in a shocking attack that left a bullet in her back.
The forensic science supervisor for the Minneapolis Police Department in Minnesota was shot multiple times on April 20, 2022.
Lenway arrived at the FamilyWise parenting center to pick up her five-year-old son Callahan at 7.30 pm but was shot a number of times at point-blank range in the parking lot on her way to the building.
What did the victim say?
"I fell to the ground...and the shooter stands over me and continues trying to shoot," she told CBS "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty.
Lenway was hit in the neck and arm but when she dialled 911, she found that she could not speak. "I knew that this could happen...but I didn't want to believe it would," the 33-year-old said.
The bullet missed the main artery by one millimeter
The bullet that pierced her neck missed the main artery by one millimeter and is still logged in her back between two ribs. Her vocal cords are still damaged though she can now speak.
A woman named Emilie Clancy witnessed the ambush and told the correspondent, "There was, um, a person who ran up to another person. … I heard two bangs and that other person collapsed."
She helped control the bleeding and immediately dialed the emergency services and spoke of the moment that she looked into Lenway's eyes.
"I just looked her in the eyes...And I said, 'Nicki, we've got this. We've got this. Just stay with me'", she said, adding "I just wanted her to know that she wasn't alone in this...and if that was the only thing I can give to this poor girl, like that - that would mean something to me."
What did the security footage show?
Body cam footage from first responders showed Lenway in the passenger seat clutching her bloodied neck and Clancy beside her doing the same while looking terrified.
After the victim told police that she believed her ex-boyfriend and father of her child Tim Amacher was involved, they started looking into it.
Amacher was inside the parenting center at the time of the shooting after a scheduled visit with his son. However, authorities found a shocking security footage that Nicki arriving to pick up her son and a masked person dressed all in black running towards her and firing shots.
The shooter could be seen running from the scene in another video from one of the surrounding buildings and driving away in a black Dodge Ram truck with no license plates.
Amacher, a taekwondo instructor, was ruled out as being the shooter due to his presence in the building with his son at the time.
Nicki Lenway testifies to the police
Lenway told the authorities about their difficult relationship peppered with allegations of abuse and a nasty custody battle for Callahan and police then established a motive.
"One night he threw me against the wall holding my neck," Lenway claimed.
She added that the custody battle ended up in trial in 2020 where the judge gave her sole legal and physical custody while Amacher could have one supervised visit with his son per week.
Police also discovered that Amacher owned a Black Dodge Ram truck like the one seen fleeing the scene though he only told police he owned a Jeep and a Dodge Challenger sedan.
When was Amacher linked to the shooting?
Amacher was eventually linked to the shooting with evidence after FBI agent Richard Fennern tracked the truck's digital trail from its Wi-Fi server.
"We could trace it much like we could a cellphone," he told the outlet. This data combined with that from Amacher's cellphone records proved that he had been driving it earlier that day, but it did not help reveal who the shooter and driver was.
Who actually shot Nicki Lenway?
Colleen Larson, Amacher's taekwondo student and girlfriend eventually confessed to the police that she was the one behind the wheel and Lenway's shooter.
Larson, now 25, was 18 years old when she and Amacher started a romantic relationship and had first become his student at the age of 12.
"She would call him Master...and ultimately kind became, you know, like a maid or a servant to him", neighbor Charlie Dettloff told the CBS program.
"I took the truck and I drove there and then I shot her," Larson told police in her second interview after initially denying any involvement.
She added that the ambush plot was Amacher's idea and that he disposed the gun following the shooting.
Where is Amacher now?
Amacher denied any involvement before or after the shooting and he went to trial last November. The victim's ex-boyfriend was found guilty of pre-meditated attempted murder and aiding his accomplice, Colleen Larson.
Amacher was sentenced to 18 years in prison while Larson received a sentence of 16-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to first-degree premeditated attempted murder.
