A 17-year-old from Minnesota is facing a lengthy prison sentence after collaborating with an accomplice to fatally stab a 19-year-old victim 22 times, predominantly targeting the back. The grim details were later found documented in one of the attackers’ journals.

Jeremy Joe Davila has admitted to second-degree murder in the killing of Jay’Mier K. Givens. On Friday, he was handed a 25-and-a-half-year prison term, with credit for the roughly eight months he has already spent in custody. His 14-year-old accomplice, whose name remains undisclosed due to his age, has also been charged with second-degree murder.

On the night of March 31, 2025, St. Paul Police Department officers responded to a call around 11:30 p.m. regarding an unresponsive male found on the street. Paramedics quickly transported Givens to the hospital, but sadly, he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

During the sentencing, members of Givens’ family spoke directly to Davila.

“I thought that he was your homey, bro,” expressed the victim’s uncle, DeWayne Givens, according to a report from The Pioneer Press.

Throughout most of the hearing, Davila kept his head bowed and offered only a brief statement, “may he rest in peace,” when the judge inquired if he wished to say anything.

The victim’s mother spoke about the difficulty she had after giving birth to him when she was 14 years old. Waynesha Givens held her son’s graduation hat and high school diploma, which he earned just four months before his death.

“It was not easy getting there, but we did it,” she recalled.

Waynesha Givens said it was “horrible to me” that her son had such a short life, but her son will always be with her.

“I feel it in my heart. And he made me who I am today,” she said, per the Press.

As Law&Crime previously reported, an autopsy revealed Jay’Mier Givens suffered 22 stab wounds: 18 to the back, two to the upper left arm and one each to the neck and right hand, a probable cause arrest affidavit said.

Givens’ brother told investigators Givens went “to smoke” with his buddies Davila and the 14-year-old whom police identified in the affidavit as JC. The suspects, who are foster brothers, lived about three blocks from where Givens was found. Detectives were able to map out the victim’s movements from the GPS on his phone, and it showed he was near the suspects’ home around the time of the slaying, the affidavit said. Surveillance video also captured three people entering a wooded area but only two running away.

A neighbor said the occupants of the suspects’ house “displayed unusual behavior” in the hours after the homicide, including covering all windows with blankets or curtains, cops noted. Investigators obtained a search warrant for the house on April 8 and ultimately recovered two knives hidden inside the basement rafters, the affidavit said. They also found clothes that matched those of the two suspects captured on the surveillance video, per officers.

Officers arrested JC on May 1 at his temporary foster home. The parents at the home told cops JC seemed anxious in recent days so they gave him a notebook to write down his thoughts. Several pages apparently referenced the homicide.

JC allegedly wrote that “we dropped one” and the victim was “poked in the back” and that “now we are havin hella fun.”

“He tried ta scream. He tried ta run but he aint fight,” the teen also wrote, according to the affidavit. “Why you aint fight for yo life when I poke u wit dis knife.”

While at first denying involvement, JC admitted to stabbing Givens, per the affidavit. He allegedly admitted to chasing him down and attacking him. He said he was beefing with the victim because he was “dissing” his girlfriend’s child, cops wrote.

JC said he and Davila lured Givens out by telling him they were in a stolen car because they knew that would “interest him.”

“That was a cover-up,” JC reportedly said. “There was no car.”

After the homicide, he and Davila went back to their home, washed the knives, and hid them in the basement rafters.

Authorities declined to reveal the fate of the 14-year-old due to privacy laws.