A Minnesota mother who murdered two of her young children and set fire to their home will spend the rest of her life in prison. Jennifer Marie Stately, 37, of Red Lake, was sentenced to life in prison on November 6, 2026, before U.S. District Judge John R. Tunheim, United States Attorney Daniel N. Rosen announced. She had been convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson.

A federal jury convicted Stately on February 25, 2026, following a two-and-a-half-week trial in the District of Minnesota. The sentencing closes the court phase of a case that began on March 15, 2024, on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota — a case federal officials described in some of the strongest language a Justice Department release carries.

What happened on March 15, 2024

According to court documents and the evidence presented at trial, Stately was alone with the children at their home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation when she assaulted the boys, causing numerous injuries, and attacked them with a knife. Her older son, aged six, was fatally stabbed and died of his sharp-force injuries, the Justice Department said.

Stately then set the home on fire. Investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) determined that she used gasoline and lighter fluid to ignite three separate fires, including fires at both exit points of the home. Her younger son, aged five, was trapped inside and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. ATF Special Agent in Charge Joseph Persails of the St. Paul Field Division said one child may have survived the injuries inflicted on him, but the fire his mother set ultimately sealed his fate, and he called arson 'not merely a property crime — fire is indiscriminate and deadly.'

After setting the fires, Stately fled with her three-year-old son and was missing for several hours. The Red Lake Tribal Police Department issued an AMBER Alert, and less than an hour later a motorist spotted her in Todd County, approximately 150 miles south of the home. Minnesota State Patrol troopers, the Todd County Sheriff's Department and the Long Prairie Police Department responded; she was apprehended and booked into the Todd County Jail.

Why the case was heard in federal court

The path to a federal courtroom ran through jurisdiction. The killings happened on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, and earlier state-level charges were dropped in April 2024 because the reservation lies outside state court jurisdiction, according to reporting at the time of her conviction; a federal grand jury then indicted her on murder and arson charges in May 2024. That is why the case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota, by Assistant United States Attorney Garrett S. Fields, rather than by a county attorney.

At sentencing, the officials who ran the case spoke of the two boys first. 'Jennifer Stately's murder of two of her children shocks the conscience. I offer my deepest condolences to the family and Red Lake community who lost two innocent lives,' U.S. Attorney Rosen said. FBI Minneapolis Special Agent in Charge Christopher D. Dotson said the sentence 'ensures Jennifer Stately is held accountable for the unimaginable violence she inflicted on two young children,' adding that no sentence can undo the loss. Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said Stately 'committed the ultimate betrayal when she took her children's lives.'

The Red Lake Nation's own police leadership thanked the agencies that worked the case. Director of Red Lake Department of Public Safety Kendall Kingbird Sr. said 'miigwech' — thank you — to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Long Prairie Police Department and all the first responders 'who played a role in finding justice for the devastating loss of two innocent victims on March 15, 2024,' adding: 'The memory of our two young community members will forever be in our thoughts and prayers of the Red Lake Nation.'

The investigation was led by the FBI, with assistance from the ATF, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Todd County Sheriff's Department, the Long Prairie Police Department and the Red Lake Tribal Police Department — six agencies across federal, state, county and tribal government, reflecting both the reservation setting and the 150-mile flight that followed the killings.

What happens next

A life sentence in the federal system is served without the possibility of parole, and the Justice Department's announcement listed no further hearings in the case: with sentencing complete, the prosecution that began with an AMBER Alert in March 2024 has reached its conclusion. What remains is the part no court can decide — the Red Lake community's remembrance of two young boys, aged six and five, whose names this report does not publish because they were child victims.