Mower County Jury Returns Guilty Verdict Against Third Person for Deadly Drive-By Shooting

Austin, MN (KROC-AM News)- The third man charged in connection to a deadly drive-by shooting in southern Minnesota has been convicted by a jury. 

See Also: Police Raid on Rochester Business, Controlled Buys Lead to Drug Charges 

A Mower County jury returned the guilty verdict on Monday, following a trial that spanned two weeks. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office prosecuted the case on a referral from the Mower County Attorney’s Office. 

30-year-old Chan Obang Oman was charged with aiding and abetting first and second-degree murder, two counts of aiding and abetting attempted first-degree murder and one count of aiding and abetting drive-by shooting. 

Mower County Jury Returns Guilty Verdict Against Man Charged in 2023 Deadly Drive-By Shooting

The fatal shooting occurred in Austin in June of 2023. Two men and a woman were hit by gunfire while they were traveling in a vehicle, which crashed into a house after being fired upon. 

Get our free mobile app

The man driving the vehicle, identified as 25-year-old Gumdel Gilo, was pronounced dead at the scene while the other man and woman were taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds. 

The criminal complaint says Obang, Manamany Abella and Jenup Chop were riding in an SUV that the victims were following to pick something up on the night of June 9, 2023. 

The SUV then pulled up beside the victim’s vehicle when Chop began shooting at the victims, court documents say. The charges also say a man on a motorcycle witnessed the crash. 

He said he followed the SUV after it fled the scene of the alleged shooting at a high rate of speed. The man said he cut off his pursuit after the occupants of the SUV fired multiple gunshots at him before entering the eastbound lanes of I-90, the complaint says. 

The jury returned guilty verdicts on the second-degree murder charge and on two counts of attempted murder, according to a news release from the Attorney General’s Office. Oman is scheduled to be sentenced in September. 

Abella, who is serving a prison sentence for a weapons violation conviction, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding an offender-accomplice after the fact for his involvement in the crime in April of 2024.

He’s scheduled to be sentenced in the deadly shooting at the end of the month. 

Jenup pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder and was sentenced in January to more than 37 years in prison.