A Minnesota mother of two, Mariah Rosanna Samuels, lost her life in a chilling act of violence just minutes after she made a desperate social media post about her ex-boyfriend stalking her.
In that post, she vented her frustrations about a restraining order that, in her view, offered no real protection. “I was trynna stay silent but stalking me at 4 in the morning and the police ain’t doing [expletive language] or did a mfing thing beside serve him a protective order and clearly it’s not doing [expletive language] G! [expletive language] this!” she wrote, letting her terror and disappointment spill out online.
Only eight minutes had passed and tragedy struck. Samuels was sitting inside her Jeep when she was shot multiple times. A man was then seen fleeing the scene riding a bicycle. Police later confirmed the suspect as David Eugene Wright, 50, Samuels’s ex-boyfriend, already the subject of her restraining order and ongoing fear.
Law enforcement moved quickly as images captured by neighbors’ security cameras helped in the process. The arrest took place later that same day, bringing Wright into custody.
When officers confronted Wright at the jail, he made little effort to deny his involvement. “I’m not going to fight this situation… This is not going to be a hard-fought case,” he told investigators.
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It should be noted here that this fatal encounter didn’t arise out of nowhere; it was the result of weeks of ongoing harassment. Just a few weeks earlier, on August 21, Mariah Samuels secured a protective order against Wright, not only for herself but also for one of her sons, according to the Star Tribune.
Wright had tracked her movements, followed her to a location close to where she was dropping off her child, and made menacing demands for a meeting. The situation turned violent when Wright allegedly pressed a gun to Samuels’s head with one hand and tried to choke her with the other as he kept making threats.
Samuels’s family told authorities that Wright was extremely jealous after learning she was “seeing another man.” The fear and distress Samuels lived with in her last days were evident, with her sisters recounting how the ex-boyfriend’s possessiveness and anger never seemed to go away despite them not being together anymore.
Riah Samuels North Minneapolis Murder: David Eugene Wright, 50, Arrested in Fatal Shooting of 34-Year-Old Mother Despite Active Restraining Order. The tree-lined streets of the Harrison neighborhood in North Minneapolis, a place of resilience…. https://t.co/GS6Mql4I7C pic.twitter.com/oDeXQCaSZ0
— Isobel Hooper (@Hoopernow) September 15, 2025
Reflecting on the grim outcome, Daniel Borgertpoepping, a spokesperson for the County Attorney’s Office, remarked, “The death of Mariah Samuels is devastating, and our thoughts are with her family. We will thoroughly review the evidence for charging when this case is submitted to us, and we are committed to seeking accountability for this horrible crime.”
Charges filed against Wright include second-degree manslaughter and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
