Wesley Morrison murder 2000

Wesley Morrison, 78, was murdered in Saint Paul on August 6, 2000. The crime took place near the intersection of Case Avenue and Mendota Street on the city’s East Side. Morrison, also known as the “Can Man,” was beaten and sustained severe head injuries that ultimately led to his death.

Witnesses have said that Morrison, a friendly man who was well known to people in his East Side neighborhood, was followed and threatened by a group of five young men. He crossed over the other side of the street to avoid the men and continued to walk north on Forrest, then he turned west onto Case Avenue.

Please help bring closure to the family and friends of Wesley Morrison, and bring his killer(s) to justice.

Anyone with information about this case is requested to contact:
Saint Paul Police Department at 651-292-3650 or 612-673-2358 or the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, Cold Case Homicide Unit at 651-793-7000

Up to $50,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the murder of Wesley Morrison.

St. Paul Payne-Phalen / Who killed the ‘Can Man’? And why?
By MARA H. GOTTFRIED | mgottfried@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: March 16, 2007 at 11:01 pm | UPDATED: November 14, 2015 at 2:52 am

Wesley J. Morrison could have turned 85 today. His family imagines he still would be collecting aluminum cans in St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood.

Instead, relatives of the “Can Man” will remember his birthday by poring over photo albums and visiting his grave.

More than six years after Morrison was beaten to death in an apparently random attack, the case remains unsolved. A reward of up to $50,000 is still being offered in the case.

“It holds on to you deep in your heart,” said Fred Morrison Sr., Wesley’s youngest child.

Morrison had six children, 17 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

“I walk down the street and see other people picking up cans and I think, ‘Those used to be my dad’s cans,’ ” Morrison Sr. said.

The random and violent nature of Wesley Morrison’s killing shook Payne-Phalen, where people had nicknamed him the “Can Man” for the years he spent walking the streets with his cart and collecting cans. Morrison had specific routes for each day and walked miles at a time. People used to say they could set their watches by him.

Morrison’s family didn’t realize how well known he had become until his death, said Sue Heiford, Morrison’s daughter.

“Every once in a while, people will still ask me if they’ve caught anyone,” she said. “I tell them ‘no.’ I hope they do, but I know at some point in time they will meet their maker.”

On Aug. 5, 2000, Morrison walked to the Rainbow Foods on Arcade Street, near his Lawson Avenue home, to buy chewing tobacco. Two neighborhood boys reported to police they heard someone say, “Shut the f- up,” and then a loud noise. A few minutes later, about 11:30 p.m., the two boys found Morrison lying unconscious at the corner of Mendota Street and Case Avenue.

Morrison’s wallet was missing, though he likely wasn’t carrying much cash. He had borrowed $5 from a neighbor that night to buy the tobacco and already had made the purchase when he was attacked.

Morrison died of head injuries Aug. 6, 2000, at Regions Hospital.

Police said five men had followed Morrison down the street, yelling and cursing at him. They were the last people believed to have contact with Morrison, and police have not been able to identify who they are.

The case is still active, but police haven’t received any new leads for a while, said Mark Kempe, who investigated the case as a St. Paul homicide investigator and now works as a special agent for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Kempe said he’s reviewing leads police previously received. He’s hoping anyone with information will come forward about people who rented property in the area in 2000 and suddenly moved after the killing.

“It’s very rare that the perpetrators of something like this don’t talk about it,” Kempe said. “Maybe the problem is they got frightened and moved away very early on. It could be they’re talking about it, but they’re in Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee or someplace else, so word isn’t getting back to us.”

Kempe stresses that the person or people who assaulted Morrison might not have intended to kill him.

Morrison, a World War II veteran, began collecting cans after he retired from Whirlpool as a vacuum-cleaner inspector in the mid-1980s. As much as it was a way for Morrison to earn extra money, it also was a chance to socialize. He wasn’t deterred by extreme heat or cold, said his family, who sometimes pleaded with him to take a day off.

He also didn’t let crime in the neighborhood end his expeditions. In the years before he was killed, Morrison was assaulted while collecting cans near a bar on Arcade Street – his assailants picked him up and slammed him onto the ground, breaking his hip and collarbone, Heiford said. The men involved in that attack were caught, she said.

Family members worried about Morrison being out after dark, but once he had mended, Morrison went right back to collecting cans.

“That didn’t stop him,” Heiford said. “Those were his streets.”

Mara H. Gottfried covers St. Paul public safety. She can be reached at mgottfried@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5262.

photos courtesy of morrison family

Wesley J. Morrison Slaying Leads

Authorities ask anyone with information on the slaying of Wesley J. Morrison to call St. Paul police at 651-266-5650 or the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension at 651-793-7000.

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