A 17-year-old from Deer River was charged Tuesday with two counts of second-degree murder and three counts of assault in connection with a stabbing that killed a 17-year-old Ball Club boy early Sunday.
The stabbing happened after two groups of boys met each other on the road in the early morning in Ball Club, according to court documents. The accused killer said he had gone to Ball Club after sneaking out the window of a Deer River group home and was on his way back when the two groups encountered each other.
Darrek Jerome Porter appeared Tuesday in Itasca County Juvenile Court on a delinquency petition charging him with the slaying of Terrell Lee Wilson. Porter also is accused of assaulting three other males with a knife.
The Itasca County Attorney's Office filed a motion to certify Porter as an adult to face adult felony charges.
According to the juvenile delinquency petition:
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Porter and two others were walking along the road in Ball Club when they encountered several others walking on the other side of the road. A fight started and one person allegedly threw a knife to Porter. Wilson, who also is identified in the petition by his initials, was going to help his friend when Porter stabbed him in the head.
According to one witness, Porter said, "Feel that blade" after stabbing Wilson. The murder weapon was described as a butterfly knife about 6 inches long and curved at the tip.
Porter told an Itasca County sheriff's investigator that he and another boy jumped out a window at a group home in Deer River. He said he and the other juvenile were walking home when they were verbally harassed by some "dudes" who came after him and the other juvenile. He said three of them jumped on the juvenile he was with and were kicking him. He said he went to pull them off and got tackled. He pulled out the knife and started swinging it. He struck Wilson in the face.
He said that he and the other juvenile from the group home took off running and he dropped the silver knife in the snow. He said a man drove them to Deer River. They were later arrested in Grand Rapids.
The juvenile he was with, who was initially identified by the Itasca County Sherriff's Office as 16-year-old CJE, told investigators that the knife had been hidden under his bed in the group home and he had the knife until the fight. He said about six people came up on him on the road and he pulled out the knife and opened the blade to scare them.
He said Porter grabbed the knife and started swinging it at everybody. He said no one else had weapons.
Itasca County Attorney Jack Muhar said Porter's next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 27. The adult certification hearing is set for Feb. 18.
Porter is being held in the Arrowhead Juvenile Center in Duluth.
