Insets: Joseph Davis (Ramsey County Jail) and Christine Morris (GoFundMe). Background: The St. Paul, Minnesota, home where Davis killed Morris, his girlfriend (Google Maps).
A Minnesota man who fatally stabbed his girlfriend after accusing her of cheating with a married man has been sentenced to decades in prison. After the killing, he stayed with their young daughter until she fell asleep.
Joseph Davis, 35, was sentenced Monday to 40 years behind bars. He pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder in the death of 33-year-old Christine Morris at their St. Paul home.
According to a probable cause affidavit, St. Paul police conducted a welfare check during the early morning hours of May 2, 2025, at a home in the 300 block of Edmund Avenue. Davis had called a family member and said he had killed Morris and was “sorry.”
Officers entered the residence after hearing a dog barking and a child coughing. They found the couple’s 2-year-old daughter sitting on a living room couch. Upstairs, in a bedroom, police discovered Morris’ body beneath a blanket. The affidavit said she had suffered multiple stab wounds to her head, neck, chest and back. Sharp-force injuries had pierced her lung, kidney and spleen.
Friends interviewed at the scene reportedly told investigators that Morris had said Davis would be responsible if she or her daughter ever died. The affidavit also noted that Davis had been arrested at least three times for domestic violence involving Morris as the alleged victim. His former girlfriend had obtained a restraining order against him and feared he would hurt her.
Investigators also spoke with a friend who had been with Morris the night before the killing. The friend said Morris told her that Davis had accused her of cheating. Morris arrived home at about 11 p.m. and texted the friend to say she had made it back safely, police said.
Police recovered Morris’ phone at a nearby park and began focusing their search on Davis. They eventually found him at a Minneapolis apartment, where a SWAT team persuaded him to come outside.
The apartment’s tenant told police she had met Davis on a dating app about a month earlier and had been communicating with him. She said he contacted her earlier that day, claiming he was running from police and asking whether he could stay at her home. According to the affidavit, Davis would not explain what had gotten him into trouble.
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After detectives read Davis his Miranda rights, they told him they had found Morris and that she had been “pretty messed up.”
When investigators asked what had happened, Davis said Morris had been “f—ing him over for 5 years by cheating on him, manipulating him, and lying to him,” detectives wrote. He claimed he had placed a recording device in the home and captured Morris having sex with someone several days before the murder. Davis said the other person was married.
Davis told investigators that an argument began after he confronted Morris about lying to him and then became physical.
“Davis said, ‘I should have never did that to her … That s— was brutal. I—I definitely feel bad,’” police wrote.
He said the stabbing began on the bed before Morris rolled onto the floor. Davis watched her “take her last breaths” and then covered her body with a blanket.
“She suffered, bro, she definitely suffered,” Davis told detectives, adding that the attack had not been planned.
After the stabbing, Davis said he lay down with the child for about 30 minutes, until she fell asleep, before leaving the house. According to the affidavit, he drove to a park and threw Morris’ cellphone out of the window.
A GoFundMe described Morris as a “loving mother, sister, and friend.” The fundraiser said her greatest legacy was her daughter, described as a “bright, strong young girl who now faces life without her mother.”
