A GoFundMe account has been established for the family of Manijeh “Mani” Starren, the St. Paul woman found dead in a Woodbury storage locker this week after she’d been missing for more than two months.
Starren, 33, was reported missing to police by her father on May 1. She last had contact with her family around April 21.
Investigators believe her boyfriend, Joseph Steven Jorgenson, 40, dismembered Starren, according to the criminal complaint filed against him Friday.
Organizers say the GoFundMe account is an effort to assist Starren’s family with funeral expenses and other costs, and support her three children.
“Her beautiful three kids have horrifically lost the most beautiful person in their lives,” the fundraiser says. “I don’t have many ways to help them myself so my hopes are we are (able to) help them this way.”
On Wednesday, before Starren’s remains were found, Bri Moinicken, who calls Starren her best friend and is helping organize the fundraiser, told a Press reporter how important being a mother was to Starren.
“Her most important thing is spending time with her kids,” Moinicken said.
She also said that Starren made friends everywhere she went because “she has this positivity and patience and kindness that she shows you no matter who you are.”
Starren lived on East Seventh Street near Johnson Parkway in St. Paul and an apartment manager told police that her boyfriend was “Joe,” who investigators identified as Jorgenson. On May 24, investigators learned that apartment management found surveillance video of Starren and Jorgenson from a camera situated by her apartment.
It showed that Starren ran from her apartment on April 21. Jorgenson ran after Starren, grabbed her, turned her around and pushed her back into her apartment, according to the complaint.
“She does not come out,” Ernster said of what video showed. “Jorgenson is the only one that comes out of the unit. And Mani is never seen again until we find her in Woodbury.”
As police investigated Starren’s homicide, they learned of another woman who is missing and asked on Friday for anyone with information to contact St. Paul police.
Fanta Xayavong, 33, was last seen with Jorgenson in July 2021, possibly in Shoreview, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman. She hadn’t been reported missing, so police recently started a missing person investigation.
The relationship between Xayavong and Jorgenson is under investigation.