Arden Hills bar owner admits to hiding gun after his friend fatally shot man

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
Updated ·4 min read

An Arden Hills bar owner has admitted to stashing the gun his friend used to fatally shoot a man during a fight inside the business, then lying to investigators by claiming the shooting was not captured on video surveillance.

James Henrey Welsch, 49, of Vadnais Heights, pleaded guilty this week to aiding an offender by being an accomplice after the fact in connection with the March 25, 2022, shooting at Welsch’s Big Ten Tavern.

Eric Baker, 47, of Minneapolis, shot 36-year-old Dustin Kukowski, of Mounds View, who died 11 days later.

Baker planned to argue self-defense at trial but accepted an 11-year prison sentence under a December deal with prosecutors that saw him plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

Welsch reached a plea agreement with prosecutors Monday, the same day his trial was to start.

Attorneys agreed that the felony offense should be ranked at a severity level of seven, resulting in a stayed prison sentence and probation, Ramsey County Attorney’s Office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said. Sentencing will be Sept. 6.

Welsch claimed he found gun outside

Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to the bar at 4703 U.S. Highway 10 around 12:30 a.m. and saw a patron holding napkins to Kukowski’s chest. He was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where doctors performed several surgeries to try to save his life. The father of two died April 5.

A bar patron told deputies he saw Baker and Kukowski fighting before the shooting. Deputies recovered a 9mm casing from the bar and later arrested Baker at a Roseville hotel. He declined to speak to authorities.

Welsch told deputies he was downstairs at the bar when the shooting took place. He was evasive when asked about Baker and denied having a phone number for him, according to the criminal complaint.

Deputies found images on Facebook that showed Welsch and Baker together at the Minnesota Wild game earlier that night. Welsch then admitted he had a phone number for Baker and gave it to deputies.

Welsch agreed to let deputies look at the bar’s surveillance system. The equipment did not appear to be powered up, and Welsch said he was in the middle of construction projects and that he had not used his camera system for a while.

Later that day, an investigator took a call from someone who wanted to remain anonymous and said that Welsch and Baker are “best friends” and that the bar’s surveillance video system worked, the complaint says.

A bartender later told investigators she grabbed the gun off the bartop after the shooting so that no one else would be hurt. She said she brought it to the kitchen and showed Welsch, who took the gun downstairs, according to the complaint.

Four days after the shooting, Welsch reported finding the Glock 9mm under trash bins at the bar. The handgun did not have a magazine when an investigator recovered it.

Welsch later that day said he didn’t remember much from the night of the shooting because he was drunk.

Investigators told Welsch that they knew he had taken possession of the gun that night. Welsch then admitted he grabbed the gun from a kitchen counter, unloaded it and hid it in the basement rafters, the complaint said. He said he later put the gun outside to get some distance from it, and apologized for not telling deputies where it was on the night of the shooting. He said he did not know where the gun’s magazine went.

Investigators opened the bar’s digital video recorder and discovered the hard drive had been disconnected from its contact site. Investigators cloned Welsch’s network video recorder and found video that stopped about a half-hour after the shooting.

Attorney: He’s remorseful

Defense attorney Thomas Kelly said Friday that Welsch had been grieving the sudden loss of his mother and turned to alcohol to deal with it, “leading to actions that were out of character for him.”

Welsch has been sober for more than two years “and his life is quite different than it was on March 25, 2022,” Kelly said.

Related Articles