The fuzzy cellphone footage shows a camo-clad man with a short-clipped ginger beard, his face darting in and out of frame as he freestyles from behind the wheel:
“They know I get crazy, man, and that’s good riddance —
to the people who did me wrong, yeah I’m blowing out their pigments.”
The words of Stephen Garnes-Toelle weren’t empty swagger.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Christopher Marshall sentenced Garnes-Toelle to 20 years in state prison Thursday for killing a man hours after he recorded the ruthless rhymes.
Garnes-Toelle, now 32, had become convinced his former girlfriend had told another man to burglarize his apartment while Garnes-Toelle was out gambling to celebrate his birthday, according to a bail memo written by prosecutors.
A surveillance camera inside his apartment showed the thief talking on the phone; Garnes-Toelle decided the voice on the other end must have been Amy Percival, who had been living with him until the relationship soured.
He posted a video of the thief on social media with a chilling comment: “I’m ready to go back to the old me,” according to a screenshot included in court papers. “I’ve missed him so.”