STILLWATER, Minn. (WCCO/AP) – Murder charges have been dropped against a man accused of killing another man during a bar fight in Stillwater.
Eric Richard won’t be held responsible in the death of 29-year-old Adam McCloud.
Prosecutors in Washington County reduced murder and manslaughter charges to first-degree assault after a medical examiner said the cause of Adam McCloud’s death was inconclusive.
The 29-year-old Bayport man hit his head on the floor during a fight over a spilled drink at a downtown Stillwater bar last September.
McCloud died at Regions Hospital in St. Paul nearly a week later. Prosecutors say McCloud fell out of his hospital bed and struck his head before he died.
According to a report in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, county attorney Pete Orput said that without the medical examiner’s homicide ruling, murder charges would be difficult to prove.
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