© Image by KARE 11Christian Oberender
Nearly 20 years after he was convicted of shooting his own mother to death, Christian Oberender of Minnesota is back behind bars for illegally owning a small arsenal of firearms.
Authorities became reacquainted with Oberender, now 32, late last year when a complaint was filed by someone who came across his Facebook page. When authorities examined the social networking account, they found photos of just a sampling of the man's extensive gun collection.
But upon first glance, the Carver County Sheriff's Office didn't see anything to spur intervention. An initial investigation found that there were no "disqualifiers" that would have prevented Oberender from owning any guns, Carver County Chief Deputy Jason Kamerud tells the Herald-Journal. When the leading law enforcement figure in the area came across the report shortly after, though, the agency started to become concerned.
Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson had reason to question the collection of guns - 17 years earlier he worked the case in which a teenage Oberender was convicted of killing his mother.
"The sheriff was one of the detectives on the case in 1995," Kamerud tells the paper. "He had a lot more knowledge of the case than the deputies who took the call."