Connie Jo Frank pleaded guilty to second-degree murder nearly two years after Willard DeGroat was fatally stabbed in a Moorhead home.

MOORHEAD, Minn. — A Minnesota woman who admitted fatally stabbing her on-and-off boyfriend and later told police she would do it again has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, bringing a nearly two-year-old Moorhead homicide case to a close with a guilty plea rather than a trial.

Clay County District Judge Tammy L. Merkins imposed the sentence on Connie Jo Frank in late July after Frank pleaded guilty the previous month to second-degree murder without intent while committing a felony. Frank had initially faced a second-degree murder count alleging intent, but that charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement. The court also credited her with 724 days already spent in custody and ordered her to pay $8,940 in restitution. The sentence resolved the prosecution stemming from the Aug. 4, 2024, death of 47-year-old Willard DeGroat.

The case began shortly after midnight when officers were sent to a residence in the 1000 block of Third Avenue North in Moorhead. Authorities found DeGroat suffering from a stab wound to the upper chest. Emergency personnel took him to Sanford Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Investigators recovered a kitchen-style knife from the residence. Moorhead police later included the death among the department’s high-profile cases from 2024, identifying Frank as the woman arrested in connection with the fatal stabbing.

According to the criminal complaint and accounts of the investigation, Frank and DeGroat had been in an on-and-off relationship for about five years. A man who lived at the residence told investigators he heard the two arguing that night and then saw the dispute become physical. He went upstairs to get Frank’s adult son so they could intervene. By the time the two men came back downstairs, DeGroat had been stabbed and Frank had left the house. Frank’s son called 911 after seeing DeGroat’s injury.

Frank did not remain away for long. While officers were still at the property investigating, she returned and was detained. According to the probable cause affidavit, she made several unsolicited statements while being taken to jail, including an admission that she had stabbed DeGroat and a statement that she “would kill him again.” Those remarks became some of the most prominent evidence described publicly in the case after prosecutors filed the original murder charge.

Investigators said Frank gave detectives a more detailed account after her arrest. She said DeGroat had arrived at the residence earlier and had been knocking on windows. Frank, who had recently been staying at her son’s home, told police she was tired of DeGroat and said that “someone had to end it,” according to the affidavit. She said she took a knife from the kitchen counter and stabbed him once in the chest. Authorities said she then left the property and hid in a nearby yard before deciding to return to the house and speak with police.

The investigation also included video and audio evidence from a neighboring surveillance system. Police said the recording captured Frank yelling shortly before DeGroat could be heard calling for someone to contact 911 and saying that he was dying. That evidence, along with statements from the people inside the residence and Frank’s own admissions to investigators, formed part of the factual account underlying the prosecution. Early reports in the case said Frank was booked into the Clay County jail hours after the stabbing and later had bail set at $2 million without conditions, with a lower cash-bail option available if she met court-imposed conditions.

By the time the case reached sentencing in 2026, the legal question was no longer whether Frank would stand trial on the original intentional-murder allegation. Her guilty plea established criminal responsibility under the lesser second-degree murder count in the plea agreement, while the intentional second-degree murder charge was dismissed. The distinction mattered to the final resolution because the negotiated plea defined the offense for which Merkins imposed the 15-year sentence. Public reports of the sentencing did not identify the underlying felony in sufficient detail to independently describe it beyond the wording of the conviction, and the available materials do not support adding an offense that was not specified.

The hearing also gave DeGroat’s family an opportunity to describe the effect his death had on them. Family members spoke about the pain that continued after the 2024 killing and about the impact of Frank’s statement that she would kill DeGroat again. One of his sisters said she remained unable to forgive Frank, according to reporting on the sentencing. Another addressed the suffering connected to DeGroat’s final moments. Their remarks shifted the proceeding from the evidence that had dominated the criminal complaint to the lasting consequences for the people who had lost him.

Frank addressed DeGroat’s relatives before Merkins announced the sentence. She apologized and said she missed DeGroat as well. “I’m really sorry to the family,” Frank said, according to reports of the proceeding. She added that she was paying for what happened and described herself as living in “my own hell.” The comments stood in sharp contrast to the remarks police attributed to her immediately after the stabbing, including her statement during the trip to jail that she would kill DeGroat again.

Defense attorney Caroline Field argued at sentencing that Frank regretted the killing and said her client had experienced abuse during the relationship. Prosecutors objected when the defense discussed allegations involving DeGroat, noting that Frank had waived a self-defense claim through the terms of her guilty plea. The available reporting does not establish those abuse allegations as adjudicated facts, and the plea meant the court was sentencing Frank for the admitted homicide rather than deciding at trial whether the killing had been legally justified.

Frank’s 15-year term includes the 724 days of credit ordered by the court. Under the sentencing structure described in reports of the proceeding, she must serve the required prison portion of the sentence before any period of supervised release. The judgment also permanently bars her from possessing firearms or ammunition and requires her to provide a DNA sample. Those conditions accompany the restitution order and prison sentence imposed in the Clay County case.

The sentence closes a prosecution that began with an emergency call to a north Moorhead home, an arrest within hours and a second-degree murder charge that originally exposed Frank to a trial on an allegation that she acted intentionally. Instead, the case ended with Frank accepting responsibility for second-degree murder without intent while committing a felony and with DeGroat’s relatives addressing the court directly before punishment was imposed. Frank remains subject to the 15-year sentence and the other conditions contained in the judgment.

Author note: Last updated Aug. 30, 2026.