Cops in St. Paul, Minnesota, investigate the homicide that killed 19-year-old Jay’Mier K. Givens (KSTP/YouTube).
A 14-year-old boy from Minnesota is accused of fatally stabbing a 19-year-old man 22 times, primarily in the back, and then documenting the incident in his journal.
Authorities have not disclosed the boy’s name due to his age, but he faces charges of second-degree murder. Additionally, a 17-year-old named Jeremy Joe Davila is charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, as per a probable cause statement secured by Law&Crime.
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Officers with the St. Paul Police Department responded at around 11:30 p.m. March 31 to a call of an unresponsive male lying on the street. Paramedics arrived and rushed the man, later identified as 19-year-old Jay’Mier K. Givens, to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. An autopsy revealed Givens suffered 22 stab wounds: 18 to the back, two to the upper left arm and one each to the neck and right hand, the 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.
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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.” Also from the notebook:
“He tried ta scream. He tried ta run but he aint fight,” the teen 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 coverup,” 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.
The teens have a hearing set for June 3. The Pioneer Press reports prosecutors are planning on moving the older teen’s case to adult court.
