A Minneapolis man accused of stabbing his percussion instructor in a music practice room at the University of Minnesota Morris told officers he had bought the knife the day before, according to a criminal complaint.
Alexander William Cusey, 21, faces four felony counts: attempted first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree assault causing great bodily harm, second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon causing substantial bodily harm and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. The complaint was issued Oct. 1 in Stevens County District Court.
According to the complaint, campus public safety officers were called at about 4:02 p.m. Sept. 29 to the university’s fine arts building on a report that someone had been stabbed. In the lower level, they found a man holding shut a door to a hallway of small music practice rooms. He said the attacker was in the back room.
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The instructor, who was bleeding from his arm, had run to the man’s office for help, the complaint says. An officer handed over his tourniquet to help stop the bleeding. When officers called for Cusey to come out with his hands up, he stepped out of a room down the hallway, raised his hands and was arrested. A knife was found in a percussion practice room.
At the hospital, where he was treated for a cut to his finger, Cusey told a doctor he had been trying to kill his percussion instructor and had tried to stab him in the neck and heart, according to the complaint. The instructor had two or three cuts to the right side of his head and stab wounds to his arm.
In a recorded interview, Cusey said he was in the practice room first, holding his percussion mallets and “trying to look normal,” the complaint says. When the instructor turned to open a bag, Cusey said, he took out the knife and stabbed at his head first, then his arm. He told the officer, “I bought it because I was going to kill him.”
Cusey said the instructor begged him to stop and he found that “thrilling,” according to the complaint. He said the instructor told him to call 911 and walked out of the room, and that he did call 911 and was on that call when officers arrived.
The attempted murder count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to the complaint.
