CROOKSTON -- Police arrested a man in the North Broadway Apartment building Sunday night as the suspect in the stabbing death of his father, 58-year-old Jerome Anthony Abel.
Before police detained 27-year-old Jacob Anthony Abel, he stood bloodied holding a knife in the apartment hallway for nearly 10 minutes yelling that he committed the crime, according to a police news release and a neighbor in the apartment.
The resident, who asked not to be named, said Abel was screaming in the hallway, yelling "I killed that (expletive)," and admitted the crime to the police once they arrived.
Another resident living down the hall called police, who arrived at the building at 9:45 p.m. to find Jacob Abel in the hallway. He was detained without further incident and taken to the Northwest Regional Corrections Center in town.
Police checked Jerome Abel's apartment 206E, finding him dead of multiple stab wounds.
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The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Affairs crime lab secured the scene Sunday night. Jerome Abel's body was taken to the UND School of Medicine and Forensic Pathology for an autopsy Monday morning.
Jacob Abel is scheduled to make his first court appearance today and police say they are considering the case a homicide. Court records show he was convicted of disorderly conduct in Polk County in November.
'Traumatizing'
A neighbor, who lived below Abel's apartment but didn't want to be named, said she believed the two men were involved in a fight in the apartment last Thursday.
Jacob Abel hadn't been himself lately and he seemed irritated and agitated, she said, and had been wearing a cast for a broken week for about two weeks, she said.
His father moved in about a year and a half ago, she said, and he had lived there periodically since.
Jerome Abel always seemed nice, she said, and had invited her to bring her children by his apartment for Halloween. After she did, she said, he told her "it meant a lot to him."
The neighbor considered herself lucky, as she could have been in the hallway when Jacob Abel left his father's apartment. "Normally, I'd go out to smoke at that time."
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She wasn't the only fortunate one, she said. "The neighbor across the hall will sit out in the hallway and work on his computer," she said. "He has a 1-year-old. It's a family-oriented place, so it can happen anywhere."
On Monday morning, she left a flower outside Abel's apartment.
She said she explained to her daughter that something bad had happened, but found out shortly after that children on the school bus were already discussing the incident.
She had to pick her daughter up early from school, she said. "It was traumatizing for her."
Bieri reports on crime and courts. Reach him at (701) 780-1118; (800) 477-6572, ext. 118; or send email to cbieri@gfherald.com .
