Accused attacker charged in deadly St. Anthony stabbing

A man accused of fatally stabbing a man and seriously injuring a teenage boy Saturday in St. Anthony is now facing criminal charges.

Court records show Jonathon Michael Kaupa, 31, faces charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in connection with the attack at Equinox Apartments.

According to a criminal complaint, two people — a 45-year-old man and a teenage boy — were found with stab wounds early Saturday morning inside an apartment building on the 2800 block of Silver Lane Northeast.

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The man, a maintenance worker for the apartment building, was in the hallway with numerous wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. The boy was covered in blood and had been stabbed several times in his upper body, including in the chest, neck and head. He was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

The boy told police the person who stabbed him, Kaupa, lived across the hall. He recalled waking up after hearing the noise of power tools out in the hall. He and the adult victim went out to tell the man to stop, and the man attacked them with a “sharp weapon like a screwdriver,” the complaint states. During the struggle, the assailant got on top of the boy and stabbed him 20 times. The adult victim pulled the attacker off the boy, who retreated back to his apartment and called 911.

Kaupa was not in the building when police arrived, and a search warrant of his unit found a rope tied to a wall stud and dangling out the third-floor balcony, leading investigators to believe that’s how he escaped the scene.

Investigators talked to a rideshare driver who reported picking up a suspicious person from the park across the street from the apartment complex and decided to return to the scene. The man, who said he was going to his parents’ house in St. Paul, was sweaty and underdressed for the weather, the driver recalled. He also had a bag with bloody clothes and rope inside it and commented on his phone being covered in “fish guts.”

Kaupa’s father had also stopped by the apartment building because he was “worried” about his son and was looking for him. He said Kaupa had come by and borrowed his Mercedes-Benz earlier that morning and could have gone to their cabin in Two Harbors.

Later Saturday morning, St. Louis County deputies identified the stolen Mercedes-Benz in Duluth. Kaupa fled during a traffic stop, but he crashed and was arrested.

Kaupa is being held at the Ramsey County Jail on $5 million bail. He made his first court appearance Monday morning.
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