Every April is a reminder of two unsolved murders in Rochester

ROCHESTER — April Sorensen was, by all accounts, a young woman on the cusp of moving forward with her life.

The then-27-year-old was studying to be a dental hygienist. A graduate of Albert Lea High School, she loved to run, often running marathons with her sisters and even her father.

All that came to an end on April 17, 2007.

Married to Joshua Sorensen, who worked at IBM at the time, April went to work at UPS early that morning before attending class at RCTC later that morning. She left class at RCTC at around 10:50 a.m., went home and was brutally murdered, according to Rochester Police reports and past reporting by the Post Bulletin.

Her husband was at work at the time.

April’s body was found when Rochester Fire Department crews entered the home after a cable TV repairman arrived for an appointment after noon and noticed smoke coming from a window of the house.

The fire inside, reports state, was localized to the bedroom where her body was found in an obvious attempt to cover up the murder. An autopsy revealed that she had died as a result of an attack before the fire was started.

By December 2007, the FBI was being consulted, developing a profile of what they believed the public should be looking for. The killer, they said, likely had the following traits: a man working alone, someone who blends in easily, a person with criminal experience and someone who is impulsive.

“You couldn’t meet a friendlier person in this world,” said April Sorensen’s father, Jon Larson of Hayward, speaking to the Albert Lea Tribune in 2007.

Thirteen years later — minus one day — Robert Volgmann was discovered to have suffered a similar fate. Volgmann and Sorensen are two of three unsolved murder cases in the last 25 years in Rochester. The other, more recent, is the case of Dahir Omar Dahir, who was killed on Nov. 21, 2024.

On April 16, 2020, authorities found Volgmann’s body in his northwest Rochester apartment.

He hadn’t been seen since April 12, 2020, Easter Sunday that year, a day that saw a heavy snowstorm.

The bedroom window of his ground-floor apartment had been open for several days when, on Thursday, he was found by a landlord who noticed the open window while stopping by to drop off food and check on Volgmann.

While his body was found that Thursday, police noted at the time he’d been dead for at least 24 hours, and that there were obvious signs of physical trauma.

Almost immediately, RPD called in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to provide another set of eyes in the apartment where the 41-year-old Volgmann was found.

Despite these crimes being five (Volgmann) and 18 (Sorensen) years old, RPD hopes some evidence or witness might come forward. After all, Dunn County, Wisconsin, law enforcement recently got a conviction of an Owatonna, Minnesota, man in a cold case from 1974.

“We want the community to know that we are fully committed to using every tool available, including the latest advances in forensic science and investigative technology, to seek justice in these cases,” said RPD Capt. Casey Moilanen.

That means everything from re-examining physical evidence with new DNA techniques to utilizing national databases and digital forensics.

“We are pursuing every possible lead with determination and care,” Moilanen said. “We understand how important these cases are to the victim’s loved ones and to the entire community.”

The Dunn County case from 1974 could certainly fit RPD’s definition of a stranger homicide. The victim and killer did not know one another, and they met by chance. That means no obvious motive was found at the time.

“Sometimes there isn’t a clear motive to the crime,” Moilanen said. “When someone close to the victim is involved, there is often an emotional or financial motive — jealousy, revenge, money, custody issues, etc. With stranger homicides, there are times when there is no obvious reason why the victim was targeted, which can make it difficult to narrow down the suspect pool.”

Moilanen cautioned that he’s not saying this is necessarily the case with Sorensen or Volgmann. Still, in its plea for more information sent out on both cases, RPD noted, “April had no enemies and was very well liked by everyone.”

Of Volgmann, RPD said, “Bobby, as he was known to friends and family, was a jack-of-all-trades and could fix just about anything. He especially enjoyed building bikes. He also loved to travel and dreamed of moving to Hawaii someday.”

But neither case, thus far, has generated an obvious list of suspects. People close to the victims often leave evidence or digital footprints that police tend to look for. Strangers can enter and leave a victim’s life in as little time as it takes to commit the crime, and if their act is premeditated, the evidence can be scant.

“If the victim had a known conflict or toxic relationship, we may have a pool of suspects,” Moilanen said. “If the victim was randomly selected, in a robbery gone wrong or a thrill killing, for example, there’s no starting point for possible suspects, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”