STILLWATER, Minn. (AP) - If you ask about a Mueller who’s investigating or prosecuting a criminal case in Washington County, chances are the response will be: “Which one?”
That’s because there are three of them.
Brian Mueller, 46, the eldest, is the chief deputy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office; Scott Mueller, 44, is special agent in charge for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s Metro Regional Office; and Kevin Mueller, 40, is an assistant Washington County attorney.
The brothers - who grew up in Cottage Grove, played hockey together and graduated from Woodbury High School - are unusually close. Brian and Kevin live just a few blocks apart in Stillwater; Scott lives in Woodbury. They all attend the same church: Eagle Brook Church in Woodbury. They regularly get together for lunch during the week. Their families vacation together. They pick up trash along a stretch of Minnesota 96 that they have “adopted”; the sign reads “The Muellers of Washington County.”
“My greatest influence has been my brothers,” said Kevin Mueller, who started working for Washington County in 2013. “One thing that they instilled in me was you’ve got to find a job that you love, where you can make a difference, because life is short.”
STRONG BOND FORGED IN CHILDHOOD
The brothers’ father traveled a lot for his job at the 3M Co., and the family moved quite a bit when the boys were young.
“We lived in three or four houses in Minnesota and lived in South Bend, Indiana, for a year. This was kind of a constant for us,” Scott Mueller told the St. Paul Pioneer Press, gesturing to his two brothers as they gathered around a table in the cafeteria of the Washington County Government Center. “Even now, when I have an issue, when I have something I need to run by somebody, these are my sounding boards right here. It’s always been that way.”
The men credit their parents, Rich and Linda Mueller of Cottage Grove, with instilling in them “a strong work ethic, duty to serve and, most importantly, prioritization of family,” Brian Mueller said.
The Muellers also stressed to their three sons that “money is not everything in this world,” Scott Mueller said. “I think they instilled in us a servant’s heart. I would say, from a young age, just doing stuff for other people. They taught us that is what makes the world go around.”
Linda Mueller, in particular, showed them how to be compassionate, Kevin Mueller said.
“She taught us how to treat people,” Kevin Mueller said. “You open doors, you treat people with respect, you treat people how you want to be treated. She taught us empathy. That has transcended into what we do now where victims are the focus of what we do now - for all three of us.”
‘IT WAS LIKE A LIGHT SWITCH’
Brian Mueller was the first to go into police work. He was studying business, marketing and operations at the University of Minnesota when he got an internship at Pillsbury in downtown Minneapolis. “I was sitting in a cube, working, driving to Minneapolis every morning, leaving every evening, and I didn’t feel that was my calling,” he said.
His next internship - in the Minneapolis police crime prevention unit - proved much more interesting. “I was out in the community, and I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t have to be sitting in a cube all day. I can be out working.’ I saw what the law enforcement officers were doing, and that kind of became the calling.”
Brian Mueller, who is married and has five children, transferred to the University of St. Thomas and ended up working as a community service officer and dispatcher at the White Bear Lake Police Department before getting hired as an officer in April 1998. He took a job at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office six months later.
Scott Mueller, who had served for two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, ended up doing a “ride-along” with Brian one winter midweek night in Hugo.
“We went on three or four calls, and I can distinctly remember the citizens that we dealt with,” Scott Mueller said. “We went to an assault call, and I said, ‘This is it. You can connect with people. You never have to sit at the same office every day. You get to see something new. You get to deal with people from all different walks of life - and deal with people at their best and at their worst.’ It was like a light switch for me.”
Scott Mueller, who is married and has two sons, graduated from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul with a degree in criminal justice and police science. Like his brother, he worked as a community service officer and dispatcher with White Bear Lake police. He was hired by the BCA in 2008.
AN EXCUSE TO GET TOGETHER
Brian and Scott got their master’s degrees in criminal justice from the University of St. Thomas at the same time. “It was a great excuse one night a week to get together, to go hang out and maybe go grab dinner after,” Brian Mueller said.
Kevin Mueller, who is married and has two young daughters, graduated from the University of Miami-Ohio and Northwestern School of Law. He clerked for a judge in Alaska, but the brothers always “stayed tight,” he said. “This was before text messaging, but we always stayed in contact.”
Kevin Mueller worked for a private law firm in Chicago before taking a job at the Cook County District Attorney’s Office. “Many people might say to trade in a potential partnership at a boutique law firm for a government salary is crazy,” he said as he sat with his brothers. “But there are two people here who would not say I was crazy.”
“When he made the change, when we heard what he was doing there, we were like, ‘All right, you’re on God’s side of the law now finally, so nice job,’ ” Brian Mueller said. “He was then allowed back in the family.”
“We decided he could come back to Minnesota when he was a prosecutor,” Scott Mueller said.
Washington County Attorney Pete Orput hired Kevin in 2013. “I already knew his brothers, and I thought, ‘If he’s anything like those two, I’m in luck,’ ” Orput said. “I interviewed him, and I offered him a job right there at the table. I just think those three guys are unbelievable in the way they protect the public - at least in Washington County - and I am just thrilled with their service.”
The Muellers “have a heart,” said Washington County Sheriff Dan Starry. “They have good moral compasses, and they are passionate about serving. They’re community-driven. You go into Stillwater or Cottage Grove or Woodbury, everyone knows the Muellers.”
‘ARE YOU GUYS ALL NAMED THE SAME?’
Sharing a last name and responding to some of the same calls caused some confusion early in their careers.
Once, Scott Mueller provided backup to Brian Mueller on a traffic stop involving “a severely intoxicated individual,” Scott said. “I was the closest car. I can remember being at the end of him running this person through field sobriety, and I mean this person was in really rough shape to be on the road, and as we were making the arrest and this person was looking at us, he just couldn’t comprehend it because he’s looking at my name tag that said ‘Mueller’ and his name tag that said ‘Mueller,’ and I think he said something to the effect of, ‘Are you guys all named the same?’ ”
Former Chief Deputy Mike Johnson gave the two a hard time when they both responded to a homicide call in Oakdale a few years ago and happened to be wearing the “same tie, same shirt, same suit, same shoes,” said Brian Mueller, who was then commander of investigations.
“Johnson comes over and says, ‘… Did the Mueller mom dress her boys today?’ ”
THE FAMILY BUSINESS OF SERVING
A few weeks ago, Brian Mueller and Kevin Mueller appeared before the Washington County Board together to discuss the county’s response to the opioid epidemic.
“If we all worked in business, and we all had offices in Woodbury, we might never show up to the same meeting,” Brian Mueller said. “We might never discuss the same topics or know the same people. It’s not lost on us how fortunate we are to spend a career you love working with the people you love as well. That doesn’t happen very often.”
Brian Mueller said he has been “unbelievably lucky” to work “in the same field and in the same area” with his younger brothers.
“There have been times when we have all ended up on the same case, the same point of business, all of us together representing different agencies,” he said. “That’s pretty awesome.”
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