Hennepin County charged Charles Henry Foss with murder in the 2024 death of Allison Lussier.

Thursday's filing is a complaint, and Foss has not been reported as entering a plea on it. FOX 9 and CBS Minnesota call the homicide count second-degree murder. The Star Tribune calls it second-degree unintentional murder. The medical examiner's manner of death is still undetermined. Alleged admissions in a charging document are not a verdict.

CBS Minnesota, FOX 9 and the Star Tribune reported Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, that the Hennepin County Attorney's Office charged Charles Henry Foss, 36, in the death of Allison Lussier, 47. CBS Minnesota and FOX 9 reported the counts as second-degree murder and stalking. The Star Tribune reported them as second-degree unintentional murder and stalking. FOX 9 reported he is already in prison in Faribault on an unrelated burglary conviction. CBS Minnesota reported he is serving time in a southern Minnesota prison for another crime. KSTP reported on Nov. 5, 2025, that Foss, then listed as 35, received 105 months for first-degree burglary and fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle. The Star Tribune's Thursday account calls that sentence eight years. No outlet reported a plea on the new counts.

What the complaint alleges is testimony, as those outlets describe it. FOX 9 reported the complaint says Foss was the last person to see Lussier alive and made admissions afterward. The station reported one person told police Foss said he thought he "killed that b---- this time." The Star Tribune reported the court-record line as "I think I killed the bitch this time," said to acquaintances at a Minneapolis homeless encampment before her body was found. FOX 9 reported a second witness saw him in a wig, and that he explained he was worried police were looking for him because he may have beaten someone to death. The station reported a third witness account in which he said he was wanted for murder, had beaten his girlfriend to death, and left her in her apartment. CBS Minnesota reported court documents say he allegedly told friends he had beaten her to death. The Star Tribune reported the complaint does not appear to highlight new physical evidence and leans on those statements. Statements attributed to a defendant in a complaint are the state's allegations.

Lussier was found dead in her North Loop apartment in February 2024, FOX 9 and CBS Minnesota reported. The Star Tribune reported a caretaker entered the unlocked unit at the Cameron Historic Flats, 756 N. 4th St., on the afternoon of Feb. 22, 2024, and found her body on the bed, and that investigators believe she had been dead for several days. CBS Minnesota reported the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office could not pinpoint an official manner of death, that she had a subdural hematoma, and that she had significant amounts of fentanyl and methamphetamine in her system. FOX 9 reported the cause was a subdural hematoma from "unknown circumstances" and the manner was undetermined. CBS Minnesota reported she had filed an order for protection against her ex-boyfriend two years before her death, alleging he had threatened her with a razor, and that she asked the county to dismiss it a few days later. Then-Chief Brian O'Hara drew criticism for saying she had a "massive" amount of drugs in her system, CBS Minnesota reported. "That statement caused real pain to the family, to those who loved her and to the broader community. I take responsibility for that impact," O'Hara said, the station reported. FOX 9 reported auditors found those statements premature and based on inaccurate information, that O'Hara had not read the full medical examiner's report, and that the department had not requested it until the auditor's office did. The station reported officers did not call the crime lab to the scene, that auditors said officers were following the protocol then in place, and that the audit recommended a different process for suspicious deaths with a domestic-violence history. CBS Minnesota reported the city auditor found 22 issues, including that only a small number of her calls led to an investigation, that none led to charges, and that investigators missed stalking elements that could have supported an arrest. An audit is a review of the investigation. It is not an element of Thursday's complaint.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty spoke Thursday. FOX 9 reported she said, "The previous chief insisted that Allison Lusher died of a drug overdose," that he said it a number of times in public, and that "that was not true." The station's transcript spells the name Lusher in that sentence. In the next, it spells Lussier: "Allison Lussier died of an acute subdural hematoma, not a drug overdose." She said that is not on the death certificate and that the medical examiner never said it was an overdose, FOX 9 reported. She said the case was not chargeable when it was first submitted, that investigators found witnesses who narrowed the time frame to less than an hour, and that the family's advocacy produced witnesses the office would not otherwise have had, the station reported. The Star Tribune reported a secret grand jury had been scheduled and was later cancelled after the office moved to charge Foss without seeking a first-degree murder indictment, citing people familiar with the matter, and that Moriarty met with the family Thursday morning before the charges were public. The burglary case is a separate judgment. KSTP reported that after a July 30, 2025, pursuit he was sentenced on the burglary and fleeing counts, and that four second-degree assault counts and another first-degree burglary count were dismissed. The Star Tribune reported that in that standoff, charges say, he cut himself in a closet and wrote "Sorry" in blood on a door, with a heart and the letter A twice. That sentence is the one he is already serving. Thursday's murder and stalking counts are the new accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.