Bemidji Man Still Not Charged 2 Years After Being Named as Shooting Suspect

Manly McDermott

A Bemidji man has still not been charged nearly two years after he was named by police in Wisconsin as a suspect in the shooting death of a woman.

Manly McDermott is currently incarcerated in the Moose Lake Correctional Facility in Moose Lake, MN, where he has been serving a five-year sentence on a different firearms conviction.

In May 2022, the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department recommended that first-degree homicide charges be filed against McDermott in connection with the death of 42-year-old Cary Elkin. Authorities say evidence obtained through search warrants, interviews, and forensic analysis led them to identify McDermott as a suspect in her shooting death.

But two years have passed and no charged have been filed, and now, family members say McDermott is scheduled to be released from his sentence in Moose Lake this September.

In an email to the Sawyer County Record, Elkin’s sister, Carol “Missy” Danha called the lack of timely disposition of the case grossly negligent on the part of District Attorney Bruce Poquette and painful to endure. Poquette told the Sawyer County Record that for strategic reasons and absent some unforeseen complication, he expects charges to be filed later this summer.