Bryan Hooper Sr.

On April 15, 1998, the body of 77-year-old Ann Prazniak was found in a closet in her apartment at 1818 Park Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her ankles were bound with electrical cord. Her head was covered with packaging tape. Her wrists were tightly bound with packaging tape.

Prazniak, who was 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighed less than 100 pounds, had been stuffed in a cardboard box wrapped in a mattress pad and two garbage bags. The body was discovered after other residents complained of a strong odor.

An autopsy report said she died of asphyxiation and had a broken rib, likely from someone kneeling on her. The date of death could not be determined. An investigation showed she had been seen in a bank in late March to report her checkbook was missing, and that she did not pay her rent due on April 1.

Prazniak, who was known in the neighborhood as “Miss Ann,” lived alone in the three-story apartment building. During the two weeks before her body was discovered, her landlord, one of the landlord’s employees, and at least one police officer went to the apartment a total of four times, but never discovered her body. Twice people had gone inside. A missing person’s report was filed. Her cat was taken to a shelter and a new lock was installed on the front door.

Neighbors told police that they had seen numerous people coming and going from Prazniak’s apartment in the two weeks before her body was discovered. One of the women was identified as “Shay” and one of the men as “Brome.”

By the end of April 1998, police had charged eight people with burglary for entering the apartment to smoke crack cocaine. Among them were Chalaka “Shay” Lewis and 27-year-old Bryan Hooper Sr., who was known as “Brome.”

The police found Lewis’s fingerprints on pieces of tape stuck to the apartment floor. The tape was similar to the tape removed from Prazniak’s body. Hooper’s fingerprints were found on two sandwich bags and a beer can. During an interview, Hooper admitted that he and others went into the apartment to use drugs and have sex, but denied killing Prazniak. He said she was a “nice little old lady” whom he had met once when he helped take out her garbage.

Hooper said that he first went to her apartment with Lewis after April 1. He said Lewis told him she was watching Prazniak’s cat because Prazniak was in treatment for alcohol abuse. Hooper said he noticed a foul smell in the apartment but attributed the odor to waste from the cat. He admitted entering Prazniak's apartment three different times to smoke crack cocaine and have sex.

At the end of April 1998, the Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee, a group of landlords, offered a $5,000 reward for information about the crime.

By then, Lewis had been interviewed numerous times by police, and repeatedly denied any knowledge of the murder. However, on the sixth interview, at the beginning of May, she implicated Hooper. She claimed that she was outside the apartment and heard a woman's voice yell “Help!”

On May 3, 1998, Hooper was charged with first-degree murder under the name of Brian Hooper.

In October 1998, Hooper went to trial in Hennepin County District Court. The prosecution’s key witness was Lewis. Hooper’s defense attorney Jeff Dean contended that Lewis was the actual killer. “This awful sickening crime was by Chalaka Lewis,” Dean told the jury in his opening statement. “Chalaka Lewis is the murderer.”

Lewis testified that on the night of the murder she was in a hallway of the building smoking crack cocaine when she saw Hooper, a woman named Tammy, and two others she did not know. She said they were standing near Prazniak’s apartment. (Police never found a witness named Tammy.)

Lewis said she went to a different part of the building because she did not want to share her drugs with the others. When she finished, she returned to the hallway outside Prazniak’s apartment, hoping that Hooper and the others would share their crack cocaine with her. She said she saw Hooper standing alone in the doorway of Prazniak's apartment. She said she came inside when Hooper offered her crack to be a lookout. She said Hooper then went to a back room of the apartment and shut the door.

Lewis testified that she saw a cat crying at the bedroom door and thought she heard a woman's voice say “Help.” She said she became afraid and left the building, but that Hooper came outside and called her back.

Lewis returned to the apartment. She said that a few minutes later, Hooper emerged in a sweat and that “his eyes was looking all wild…and he was cussing and swearing.” She said Hooper searched through drawers of a desk in the dining room and pulled out some rolls of packaging tape. He told Lewis to tear off tape for him. Lewis said she tore strips of tape and threw them on the floor. Hooper then took the tape strips to the bedroom and Lewis heard “some rumbling or some bumping noises.”

Lewis testified that she was frightened and went out into the hallway. Lewis, who was five months pregnant at the time, said Hooper opened the door and threatened to kick her in the abdomen if she didn't keep watch. She said Hooper went down the hall, purchased some crack, returned, and gave it to her, demanding that she smoke it in Prazniak's apartment.

She said that after she smoked the crack, Hooper offered her more if she cleaned up the living room so he could sell drugs from the apartment. She said she picked up trash and put it in garbage bags. Then they went to the street corner where Hooper bought more crack. Lewis testified she told Hooper that she didn't want to go back to the apartment, but she did after he said, “Don't make me hurt you.” There, she said, he offered her two bags of crack if she straightened up the back room. Lewis told the jury that she was afraid to go into the back room because the cat was at the door crying, and she thought Hooper had done something to Tammy.

However, the bedroom was empty when she went in to clean. She was relieved, assuming that whoever had been back there must have escaped. She filled a garbage bag with Christmas lights, string, glass, chain links, newspaper, and cardboard. Lewis testified that she tried to open the bedroom closet but could not because a knife was wedged between the door and the doorjamb. She said Hooper told her to leave the door alone, and she and Hooper then put the bags of trash in the hallway and left.

Outside, she said, Hooper threatened to kill her if she told anyone what happened, and that if anyone asked, she should say she went to the apartment with Tammy. Lewis testified that she returned to Prazniak's apartment about a week later and bought crack, and that she returned later to look for something to steal and to smoke crack. In her statement to police, Lewis admitted that she told others to say, “the old lady is out of town.”

The prosecution presented four other witnesses who claimed that Hooper had incriminated himself.

• Calvin King testified that he and Hooper bought narcotics together at 1818 Park Avenue South on April 9, 1998. Hooper suggested that they get high in a place upstairs in the building, but they went to King's house instead. After getting high, King said Hooper said he was glad they did not go to the place he had suggested “because it stink [sic].” Hooper then told King, “Man, I did some fucked up shit…I had to kill the motherfucker… For real. A [sic] old bitch on top of it.” King testified that he saw Hooper again at the Hennepin County Jail between April 20 and May 4, 1998. King said Hooper reported that he was being held for a burglary connected to the crime he had told King about previously. In fact, Hooper was being held for burglary of Prazniak's apartment.

• Lolita Fairley testified that on April 18 or 19, she and Hooper went to a house to use drugs together. Fairley testified that before getting high, Hooper asked her if she had heard about the killing on 18th and Park. She said he told her that he “accidentally killed her,” although he did identify the person he referred to as “her.” Fairley admitted that she had initially told police that Hooper said he killed Prazniak while Prazniak's apartment was full of people getting high. Fairley also admitted that during police questioning, she accused Hooper of killing another person.

• Cardnel Brown testified that he talked to Hooper in May 1998 while they were both in custody. Brown testified that Hooper said he was selling drugs and prostitutes out of Prazniak's apartment. According to Brown, Hooper said he was roaming the hallway with a “female associate” at 1818 Park when a lady came out to see what was going on, and that he pushed the lady in the face, knocking her unconscious. Hooper allegedly claimed that the female associate sat down to get high, and they discussed what to do with the lady. Brown testified that Hooper told him he wrapped the victim in bedding and plastic, put her in a box in the closet.

• Lucas James testified that while he was in custody, Hooper admitted being involved in “Annie's” murder, that Hooper said Prazniak told him to leave the apartment because Hooper was not giving Prazniak money for using her home for prostitution. James said that Prazniak pushed him, and that he snapped and started “swinging on her.” James testified Hooper told him that he had killed her, but did not mention anyone else being present at the time.

Brown, King, and James all admitted they had heard coverage of the murder in the media prior to testifying. Fairley, King, and James testified they did not know each other. Fairley said she did not receive anything from police in exchange for her testimony. Brown testified that he received $30 from a police officer, but it was not in exchange for his testimony. King said that in return for his testimony, the prosecutor promised to help him get credit for time served on an unrelated offense. James, in exchange for his testimony, received a shorter-than-guidelines sentence for an unrelated offense.

The defense called Vonda Quass, who had admitted to police that she had smoked crack in Prazniak’s apartment, but she invoked her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and refused to testify. The defense then sought to introduce a videotape of a police interview with Quass during which she said she had a conversation with a resident of Prazniak’s building about the foul smell there, and that she and the resident concluded that Prazniak was dead. When asked why she didn’t call 911, Quass said, “That was two weeks after she died.” When police asked how Quass knew when Prazniak died, Quass said, “The whole building knew.”

The prosecution objected, calling the interview irrelevant hearsay. Judge Patricia Kerr Karasov sustained the objection and the video was not aired.

The defense had subpoenaed a witness named Terry Edwards, who had given a statement to police that Lewis had admitted to him that she accidentally killed Prazniak. Edwards showed up at the courthouse and later said that someone at the courthouse told him that he would be sent to prison if he testified, so he left. The defense was allowed to bring out Edward’s statement through questioning of the police officer who took the statement.

On October 13, 1998, the jury convicted Hooper of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

While the case was on appeal, it was remanded to the trial court for a hearing on a petition for postconviction relief.

At the postconviction evidentiary hearing, Christopher Genosky, a witness who came forward after trial, testified that he spoke to his father around April 1 of 1998, and his father told him Quass had called. Quass was Genosky's former girlfriend and the mother of his child. Genosky called the number his father gave him, and when he spoke to Quass she was “emotional…she kind of swings from laughing to hysterical…that's how she normally is when she's on crack.”

Quass told Genosky she wanted a ride to Waukesha, Wisconsin. Genosky testified that “when I kept saying no, she had finally said that her [sic] and her friend Shay needed a ride because they had hurt a lady and needed to get out of town.” At the time, Genosky thought Quass was lying to manipulate him into doing her a favor.

Genosky testified that he had moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota in October of 1998 around the time of Hooper’s trial. He said he did not hear of the case until reading about it in a newspaper in October of 1999. Genosky initially signed an affidavit in which he stated that Quass told him she and Shay hurt a lady in an apartment building, but at the hearing, Genosky testified he was not sure whether Quass mentioned an apartment building during their conversation.

The state, during cross-examination, showed that Genosky was unsure of many additional details regarding his contact with Quass, including details of his alleged contact with his father. Phone records showed no calls to Genosky from his father between March 22 and April 12, 1998, but they did show a call from Genosky to his father on March 29, 1998. Genosky asserted that his long-distance bill did not reflect the call to Quass because he used a prepaid calling card.

The state presented evidence that in the fall of 1998 Genosky falsely accused the manager at his place of employment of sexual harassment because he wanted to be promoted to the manager’s job. When confronted with a copy of a written notice of disciplinary action summarizing the false accusation incident, Genosky maintained that he had never seen the notice, that he had never admitted making false accusations of sexual harassment, and that although the signature at the bottom looked like his own, someone must have forged it.

The investigator of the reported sexual harassment incident testified that Genosky admitted bringing the false allegations of sexual harassment and that he signed the written notice of disciplinary action in her presence. The investigator also testified that in her opinion Genosky was not a truthful person and that he had a reputation for dishonesty at his former workplace.

Genosky's father acknowledged in his testimony that he told police his son told the truth only about half the time but claimed he was referring to when Genosky was young. The state showed that Genosky had three prior burglary convictions.

The motion for a new trial was denied.

In December 2000, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence, and affirmed the denial of the postconviction motion.

In March 2003, Hooper filed another petition for postconviction relief. It said that 2001, during an interview with Calvin King by Hooper’s lawyer and a defense investigator, King nodded when confronted with their belief that his trial testimony was false. King had said he would provide a written statement confirming the falsity of testimony once his pending charges were resolved, but he never submitted such a statement. The motion also said that in January 2003, Cardnel Brown admitted that his testimony was false, and that Hooper had never admitted any involvement in the crime.

The petition was denied without a hearing and the denial was upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Years later, Hooper filed another petition based on the additional recantation of Lucas James as well as testimony from a new witness, Andre Agee. At a hearing, James testified that his trial testimony was false, and that Hooper never admitted any involvement. Agee testified that in 1999, Lewis told him that she had “killed an old lady before.”

That petition was denied as well, and the denial was upheld on appeal.

In 2015, Hooper filed his fourth petition for postconviction relief. This petition added the recantation of Lolita Fairley. In an affidavit, Fairley said she lied about Hooper’s alleged confession because she hoped she could get the reward money.

This petition was denied on procedural grounds: the previous recantations had already been litigated and Fairley’s recantation was too late.

Hooper brought a fifth petition in 2019 arguing that the postconviction statutes were unconstitutional. He also filed a motion for DNA testing. Both were denied.

By 2025, the Great North Innocence Project had taken on Hooper’s case. In August 2025, Great North attorneys James Mayer, Anna McGinn, and Baylea Kannmacher filed another petition for postconviction relief.

The petition said that Lewis, who had since changed her name to Chalaka Young and was serving a 10-year prison sentence in Georgia for aggravated battery, had written a letter admitting that she was the killer and that Hooper was innocent.

“I am not okay any longer with [an] innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit,” she wrote. She said her “soul [sic] purpose here is not to make any excuse but to take responsibility for two innocent lives that I have destroyed and…to make true amends for once in my life.”

She explained that she was smoking crack in a hallway when a “white lady came up with bags in her hand as if she had just come from the store.” She said she asked the woman if she had something to drink, and the woman invited her into her apartment. Young said the woman, who she later learned was Prazniak, gave her a full cup of gin. “[T]he next thing I remember after that is walking towards her but waking up on the couch asking God to forgive me,” Young wrote.

“I walked toward the back area and just in the doorway was Ms. Ann…I couldn’t understand what happen[ed] so I became very scared and checked her and she was dead and I started again crying asking God to forgive me and forgive her sins,” Young wrote.

She said she left the apartment in a panic to get more drugs, then returned “to figure out what to do. I felt like an evil presence was in me. As I sat back on the couch my mind beg[an] to plot what I can do to get out of this. But I needed more dope to do it.” She said she locked the door to the back room and took more drugs. She said, “I stayed as high as I could because to come down was to[o] devastating for my mind. I had only been in the state for a couple of months for my husband and child had abandon[ed] me and I had abandoned[ed] them, and now I had accidentally killed this woman and didn’t know how.”

She wrote that each time she “would take a hit of dope I would get ideas. Tape up the body put it in a box and shove it in the closet, and that’s what I did.”
She admitted falsely accusing Hooper after police questioned her about being in the building. She said that she had “found God,” and begged Hooper to forgive her.

Young reported to a prison chaplain that she had committed a murder 25 years earlier and wanted to confess. She also repeated her admissions during two interviews with a special agent with the Georgia Department of Corrections. During the interviews, she admitted she had invented “Tammy,” and that she had placed a knife in the door jamb on the closet door to keep it shut.

The Minneapolis police department was then notified, and officers interviewed Young. She confirmed her account.

At the time of Young’s confessions, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) was already investigating the case. The CIU had obtained recordings of telephone calls Young had made from the Georgia prison to a family member during which she said she was about to come forward because “there’s an innocent man [who] did time for a crime that he didn’t even commit…I was intoxicated. All I know is that I tried to hide it and, and then I blamed it on somebody. This dude named Brome…And this man was sentenced…to prison for a crime I know he didn’t commit ‘cause I was…the only one there.”

The CIU also ensured that no one had recently called or visited Young to pressure her to make these statements.

The CIU interviewed Young on August 6, 2025. She repeated her admissions, saying she was solely responsible for Prazniak’s death.

The CIU interviewed Terry Edwards, who had been interviewed by police at the time of the crime. In that interview, Edwards confirmed that Young had admitted to him that she had accidentally killed Prazniak.

The petition noted, “Bryan Hooper has spent nearly three decades in prison for a murder he has always insisted he did not commit. Now, in a remarkable act of conscience, the key witness against Mr. Hooper comes forward to attest to the devastating lie that led to the conviction of an innocent man.”

The CIU filed a response to the petition just hours later. “Because the State has concluded that [Hooper’s] claim for relief is meritorious, the interests of justice demand that the State agree to and join in [Hooper’s] request that his conviction be promptly vacated,” the CIU said.

On September 3, 2025, Judge Marta Chou vacated Hooper’s conviction, and the prosecution dismissed the case. Hooper was released the next morning.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty issued a statement saying: “Today, the courts have affirmed what Bryan Hooper, his family, his loved ones, and his advocates have always known: Mr. Hooper is an innocent man.”

Posting Date: 09-18-2025