A 45-year-old Minnesota dad’s bail has been set at a cool $2 million after prosecutors accused him of “executing” his daughter’s boyfriend and burying him in a makeshift grave.
Michael Lee Laflex of Brainerd was charged with second-degree intentional murder in the death of 23-year-old Bryce Brogle, whose body was found Sunday on public land. He had been reported missing two days prior by Laflex’s daughter, who told police she hadn’t seen her boyfriend since Wednesday, when he’d left to visit a storage unit in Crow Wing County. According to a criminal complaint obtained by The Daily Beast, Laflex, who had rented the unit, had gone with him.
Investigators who descended upon the unit with a search warrant were quick to declare it a crime scene, finding blood on the concrete floor, as well as marks indicating something had been dragged. A bottle of bleach was also recovered, according to the court filing.
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In an interview with deputies, Laflex allegedly claimed Brogle had been arrested, and that officers supposedly involved had confiscated his two cell phones. But prosecutors say he later changed his story, saying that he himself had taken Brogle’s phones, dumping them in a gas station trash can. (The phones were later recovered by law enforcement.)
A “concerned citizen,” anonymized in a probable cause statement, came forward to say that a relative of Laflex’s had had a disturbing conversation with the 45-year-old, in which he said he’d come to believe Brogle was abusing his daughter. The family member said Laflex had said he’d shot Brogle “and Brogle would not be found as [the body had] been buried.”
Brogle’s body was later found in an area identified in court records only as public land. An autopsy subsequently determined he’d been shot once in the back of the head. Police believe Laflex killed Brogle in the storage unit, then moved his body with some kind of sled, they wrote in charging documents.
At some point in the course of the investigation, the couple’s landlord called the sheriff’s office, saying Laflex had contacted him recently, asking if Brogle “had hurt his daughter,” according to the complaint. The landlord replied that he’d seen the daughter with two black eyes. Laflex then said “he was going to kill Brogle,” investigators wrote, “and already had the hole dug.”
Laflex is no stranger to the law, with his record in Crow Wing County detailing previous charges of sexual misconduct. In 2017, he was arrested and charged with two counts of criminal sex conduct after he was accused of having intercourse with a person identified as “a vulnerable adult.”
The victim, who had a developmental disability and was mentally impaired, initially told Laflex they didn’t want to have sex with him, “but later agreed… at [Laflex’s] insistence,” according to court records. His jury trial was canceled in 2018, with a judge dismissing one charge and issuing a stay of adjudication on the other.
