Aitkin County Sheriff Dan Guida joined Liz Collin on her podcast to discuss Attorney General Keith Ellison’s Conviction Review Unit and the case that he says has put confidence in the criminal justice system on the line.
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The case involves the brutal murder of 84-year-old Evelyn Malin who operated the Dollar Lake Store in rural Aitkin County for 50 years. On the morning of Feb. 25, 1998, she was found beaten and strangled in her room at the back of the store where she lived.
“It was horrible. It was a scenario that made the whole world of ours very nervous,” Sheriff Guida said.
He also explained how the murder left a mark on the community. “We live in a community that’s very pro-law enforcement. They’re friendly, they love public safety. So when this happened, it really left a big mark. A lot of people had been at Evelyn’s store. Everybody that lived in the region had known Evelyn,” he said.
Brian Pippitt, a suspect in the killing, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. His conviction was upheld twice by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Three of his accomplices were also found guilty.
But in 2024, Pippitt filed a motion to vacate his conviction with the backing of the Conviction Review Unit—a federally-funded project under Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office in partnership with the Great North Innocence Project—which released a report recommending Pippitt’s “full exoneration.”
Ellison’s Conviction Review Unit
Sheriff Guida recalled how he first heard about the effort to exonerate Pippitt. “We got invited to a meeting at the county attorney’s office. The undersheriff and I and the county attorney met with this conviction review unit’s legal team … they had spent years preparing this case. There’s no doubt. It was a giant stack of information,” he said.
He also pointed to what seemed like haystacking. Sheriff Guida told Collin how “they had this giant document” and said, “‘here you go, you can read this and let us know what you think’ and they gave us about a week to read it.”
Regarding what the investigators hired by Ellison’s CRU had to present, Sheriff Guida said “they just came up with this fanciful idea of this is what happened” and that “it was impossible for Evelyn’s murder to have happened as it was presented during the trial.”
However, he also said that “not only did they claim that Pippitt was innocent, they alleged that the prosecutors, law enforcement, even the defense attorneys engaged in misconduct.”
Sheriff Guida said they were apparently left without any real choice in the matter, despite being told about “a couple choices.”
“‘You can either fight this or you can agree to reopen this case. The Attorney General’s office will agree to be the lead prosecutor on this case and then we will dismiss it so that Aitkin County doesn’t look bad.’ That was what was presented to us,” Sheriff Guida said.
“They didn’t care about justice, they didn’t care about what was going on … it turned into—in my opinion—a thing about votes, not about doing what was right, not upholding the law,” he said.
Given all that was going on, Sheriff Guida and his team started their own investigation of the CRU findings.
“My whole career I’ve demanded the truth. I want to know the truth. I want to support the truth,” he said.
Sheriff Guida said he reached out to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). “We had an independent team of auditors, excellent investigators, the top of the state come forward and actually do an independent research analysis on all this evidence,” he said.
“We provided them with a lot of details … things in this case that weren’t actually even used in trial. All of the evidence we collected, all the notes, all those things … and by the time they were done, it was a unanimous feeling that everything in this case had been done absolutely correctly,” he added.
Sheriff Guida also explained how after the audit from the BCA, “there was no question that Brian Pippitt was not innocent—he was guilty of Evelyn Malin’s murder.”
“They didn’t care about the truth. They didn’t care about the evidence. They didn’t care about the facts of the case. They just wanted to pick apart the case with the evidence they thought they could slander or change and make it look like Brian was innocent. That’s all they cared about,” Sheriff Guida said.
Ultimately, in September 2025, the Minnesota Board of Pardons voted 2-1 to commute Pippitt’s sentence. He was released from prison in January. His request to have his conviction vacated is still making its way through the courts, which could open the door for a lawsuit against the county or state.
Incidentally, while Attorney General Ellison launched the Conviction Review Unit, he is also one of the three members of the Board of Pardons, along with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Natalie Hudson.
“What I concern myself with is when our system becomes broken to the fact that the victims are no longer acknowledged or taken care of. And the only people that are supported in the system are the suspects in the system,” Sheriff Guida said.
“If the process failed Evelyn Malin and the family of Evelyn Malin and the people of Aitkin County, what’s going to happen next? If you no longer trust in the system, what do we have?” he asked.
“The sheriffs across the state of Minnesota stand strong together. We’re going to fight evil. But when the politics get in front of good versus bad, bad things happen,” Sheriff Guida added.
Alpha News reached out to Attorney General Ellison’s office and did not hear back.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter, news anchor, and producer who cares about Minnesota. She is the producer of The Fall of Minneapolis and Minnesota v We the People documentary films, and author of the Amazon best-selling book, They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and The Death of George Floyd. Her work has prompted important state laws. Yet perhaps most of all, Liz has been giving a voice to the truth—and helping others tell their stories—for more than 20 years.
Dr. JC Chaix
Dr. JC Chaix is an editor, educator, and an expert in media studies. He wrote and directed the Alpha News documentary "The Fall of Minneapolis" and "Minnesota v We the People."
