On Christmas Eve 2023, 41 year old Master Sergeant Nicholas Van Pelt was dead, and a 40 year old woman who was not his wife was on the ground bleeding from a bullet to the shoulder and one to the arm. Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security Agent Daniel Breijo was patiently waiting for police to arrive with his hands on his head and the murder weapon at his side in the bathroom.

The bleeding woman was able to tell police, “Danny did it” as she was taken to safety and for medical attention. She has not been identified, except that she is a 40 year old employee in Ward County’s state attorney’s office. What she meant was that Breijo was the one who fired eight shots in the small apartment, six almost immediately into the chest of Van Pelt when he answered the door.

Since that time, the criminal case in the state of North Dakota against federal DHS Agent Breijo has lingered and largely stalled.

Nine months later and the case still has not set the dates for its preliminary hearing, and the defense uncharacteristically keeps trying to seal all details in this criminal case from public view.

North Dakota residents are wondering what the hell is going on in their state where federal authorities are being charged with killing another federal authority.

And what those who know Department of Homeland Security Agent Breijo say, is that a massive cover-up is underway. 

The defense has asked the North Dakota state court to seal the proceedings in the murder case, a most unusual maneuver say experts. The judge in the case is Judge Daniel El-Dweek, who denied the request to cover-up the proceedings in the case. The prosecutor, Amanda Engelstad, had originally said she had no opinion on whether the case was sealed to the public, virtually ensuring that it would be sealed.

Local media has been reluctant to identify Breijo as a federal agent. A federal source said Breijo was the “connector” or “embedded” between multiple state and federal agencies in the state, adding “everyone knew Breijo.”

Breijo was specifically “close friends” with the Minot Federal Bureau of Investigation say those close to the case. Specifically, Breijo was close with Special Agent Sarah Joyce. Joyce has told people she is “very close” to Breijo and “implicitly trusts him” on multiple cases.

The FBI has declined comment for this article when asked about their connection to the murder of Air Force Master Sergeant Van Pelt.

Those who have run into Breijo previously believe that there is a cover-up underway, and that Breijo’s charges will be quietly pled down or dismissed. They say that Breijo’s likely real motive: interfering in an ongoing law enforcement investigation by the Minot Air Force Base, will likely be spun by authorities as a simple love triangle gone wrong. Federal authorities claim that if that were the case, the motive would already have been released and there wouldn’t be an effort to seal and cover-up the case’s proceedings.

One North Dakota Senator appraised of the situation is asking for authorities to intervene in this case, but his pleas are falling on deaf ears.

“The Breijo situation doesn’t add up, something’s not right,” said North Dakota Senator Kent Weston (R) to the Gateway Pundit. “It’s so suspicious that he threatened other people in the state, and all the states that have happened in other cases involving Breijo, and then he goes and kills someone and attempts to kill someone else, and we’re suspiciously not getting information on the case, all the while his charges keep getting reduced. What’s this all about? The Breijo situation is beyond weird, it’s all beyond odd.”

All of the judges recused themselves from the case because they knew the female victim. There are also credible accusations that the judges were aware that there has been ongoing scandals in the North Dakota political system that involve DHS Agent Breijo. 

Next action in the case is two weeks from Thursday on October 10th, which will discuss the setting of a preliminary hearing.

Court documents so far have failed to identify a possible motive for the murder. Breijo is currently being held by the Ward County Detention Center on a $2 million bond. Breijo is currently charged with Murder, Aggravated Assault, Reckless Endangerment, Terrorizing, and Assaulting a Correctional Officer. 

Van Pelt was in the Air Force’s 219th Security Forces squadron. As of 2021, there were 139 authorized personnel, 59 full-time and 80 part-time or traditional guard members, in that squadron.

At his funeral, his squadron commander Maj. Greg Goodman said that Master Sgt. Van Pelt and the rest of the squadron was tasked with providing security to the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missiles stationed at Minot Air Force Base.

One of Breijo’s other victims notes a possible motive to the Gateway Pundit: “The case is so cut-and-dry, why isn’t there a trial yet? It feels like they are delaying this trial so that they can keep downgrading the charges against Breijo so they can plea him out and keep covering up what’s going on here.”

“Breijo and BCI [The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation] are being accused of making false statements. If Breijo felt like people were about to burn him as these details come out and someone has to go down, then by choosing to commit a murder on state territory he might save himself. His logic would be that the state will never admit to their own corrupt BCI agents as being connected to Breijo. Breijo knows that the things that are likely to come out are so sensitive and classified that federal authorities won’t admit to him and the state won’t know how to prosecute him, so he expects his charges will eventually get dropped. He’s protecting himself by putting himself in jail for the time being under state law because the feds will never want to claim him or take him back.”

“This was Danny Breijo’s calculated retirement.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s media office refused to provide a comment or response for this story.

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