Justin Esparza’s relatives described a thoughtful man who loved his work, while the court record focused on the violence that ended his life.
HALLOCK, Minn. — Long before Justin Esparza’s name appeared in a murder case, his relatives knew him as a thoughtful man who loved beekeeping and spoke with enthusiasm about work that never felt like work. A 15-year prison sentence has now closed the prosecution of the woman who killed him.
Jordan Carol Hanson, 24, was sentenced July 8 to 180 months in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree felony murder in Esparza’s death. Authorities said Hanson shot the 43-year-old with his own handgun inside his Hallock home on March 13, 2025, then left with his truck and dog. The sentence formally resolved the criminal case, but it did not answer every question held by a family that first learned of the killing through a phone call and then watched its relative become known publicly through police reports.
Esparza’s cousin Nick Esparza said the news was difficult to absorb. He told Valley News Live shortly after the killing that he had been at work when his father called and told him what had happened. The shock did not immediately feel real. In the days that followed, relatives tried to understand how a visit involving Hanson, who had reportedly recently left a treatment center, ended with Esparza dead in his living room.
The family’s memories centered on qualities that could not be measured by evidence markers or court filings. Nick Esparza described his cousin as someone with a big heart who thought deeply and liked to talk through his ideas. Esparza had no wife or children, according to the family’s early account, but he was remembered as a cousin, brother and friend with ties to relatives in the St. Paul area and a life rooted in northwestern Minnesota.
Beekeeping was a major part of that life. In a video made for his cousin, Esparza said he had worked in the bee business for four or five years and loved it. “It wasn’t even like working!” he said. The short remark preserved his excitement about a demanding occupation and gave his family a record of his voice after his death. It also stood in contrast to the official language that followed, which reduced his final hours to a chronology of a handgun, a witness and an arrest.
Police were first alerted after Hanson appeared at her mother’s home with Esparza’s dog. According to the probable cause account cited in news reports, she told her mother that she had shot Esparza. Her mother called police, and another family member requested that authorities check on him at his residence. Officers found Esparza dead in the living room from a gunshot wound to the head. A 9 mm handgun was on the couch nearby, and investigators found a shell casing on the floor.
A man who said he had been at the home told investigators that he, Hanson and Esparza had smoked methamphetamine. He said he saw Hanson shoot Esparza. Authorities also said Hanson had been picked up from a treatment center before arriving at the residence. Public accounts have not established what led to the gunfire, whether an argument occurred or why Hanson used Esparza’s weapon. The state’s sentencing announcement did not identify a motive.
Hanson left the home in Esparza’s truck and took his dog, according to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Those actions became part of the official account of her flight. The dog’s presence at her mother’s home also helped connect Hanson to Esparza before officers reached the crime scene. Officials have not publicly detailed what later happened to the animal or where the truck was recovered. For Esparza’s relatives, those property questions remained secondary to the loss of the person who owned them.
When Chief Deputy Dave Thompson arrested Hanson, police said she appeared confused and made statements that did not fit the situation. She commented that Thompson had lost weight, asked why sugar beets remained on the ground and incorrectly said she was being arrested because she had shot Thompson. Her family had described her as delusional from drug use. The comments became a striking part of public coverage, but they offered no reliable explanation for why Esparza was killed.
The legal case moved more slowly than the first burst of news. Hanson was initially charged after the March 2025 shooting, and state prosecutors later handled the matter at the request of Kittson County Attorney Robert Albrecht. She pleaded guilty May 28, 2026, to second-degree felony murder. The plea avoided a trial that could have required Esparza’s relatives to sit through testimony about the shooting, drug use and the condition of the home where he died. At sentencing, Attorney General Keith Ellison said his thoughts were with Esparza’s family and loved ones. He said he hoped the prison term would give them a sense that some measure of justice had been done. Ellison thanked the county attorney, local law enforcement and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, whose work helped move the case from the first family calls through the guilty plea.
The attorney general’s involvement reflected the needs of a small-county prosecution. Minnesota’s attorney general primarily handles civil work and does not ordinarily prosecute most local crimes. State law, however, allows the office to appear in a criminal case after a county attorney asks for assistance. In Esparza’s case, the referral brought state prosecutors into a matter investigated by the Kittson County Sheriff’s Department, Hallock Police Department and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
For the family, the formal division of responsibility mattered less than whether the process treated Esparza’s death seriously. Soon after the killing, relatives were dealing with funeral costs and waiting for his body to be released while the investigation remained open. They had questions about the circumstances surrounding Hanson’s reported release from treatment and arrival at the house. The guilty plea established who was legally responsible, but it did not provide a detailed public account of the decisions and interactions that preceded the shot.
That gap is common in cases resolved by pleas. A trial can produce days of testimony, exhibits and arguments that reveal competing versions of an event. A guilty plea usually creates a narrower record centered on the facts needed to support the conviction. Hanson’s admission settled the charge and led to punishment, but it left much of Esparza’s final day outside the public narrative. No full transcript of the plea or sentencing hearing was included in the official announcement.
The sentence also cannot restore the ordinary details of Esparza’s life. It cannot return him to the beekeeping work he described with joy, or to conversations with relatives who remembered the way he thought about the world. Court records measure the case in months of imprisonment. His family measures it in the absence of a person whose death arrived suddenly and whose future ended inside his home.
Jordan Hanson is now serving the 180-month sentence imposed by the Kittson County court. No further trial is expected because of her guilty plea, and authorities have not announced any additional charges in connection with the killing. The prosecution has reached its legal ending, while Esparza’s relatives are left with the personal record they began sharing in the days after his death: a big heart, a thoughtful mind and a love for bees.
Author note: Last updated August 5, 2026.