St. Paul man charged with 2 counts of second-degree murder of his 17-year-old brother

A 24-year-old St. Paul man accused of killing his 17-year-old brother has been charged in Ramsey County as of Wednesday.

According to court documents, 24-year-old Eric James Young faces two counts of second-degree murder in connection to the death of Davant Coppage. St. Paul police identified Coppage on Wednesday. Young is expected to make his first court appearance Thursday afternoon.

The criminal complaint states, on Tuesday at around 3:15 a.m., officers responded to an apartment located on the 2200 block of Lower Afton Road in St. Paul on a report of a domestic situation. The caller reported her sons, Young and Coppage, were physically fighting and a knife was involved.

17-year-old killed in St. Paul stabbing identified

Upon arrival, police found Coppage bent over the edge of a bed with his knees on the floor and his arms resting on the bed above his head. Young admitted to officers that he had been fighting Coppage. The 17-year-old was unresponsive and was given CPR by authorities until medics arrived. Before medics arrived, police observed a laceration beneath Coppage’s right eye. Once medics arrived and cut off the victim’s shirt, several lacerations were found in his abdominal area. Medics eventually pronounced the teenager dead at the scene, according to the complaint.

The mother told officers that she received a call from Coppage around 2:30 a.m. asking for a ride from north Minneapolis. She said she refused to pick him up and attempted to arrange an Uber for him, however, her debit card wasn’t working. The complaint states when Coppage eventually arrived at his mother’s apartment, he was in a rage. Young confronted Coppage about disrespecting their mother and they began to fight in the bedroom. She witnessed them throwing fists at each other. During the altercation, Coppage allegedly asked his mother to get Young off him. Young came out of the bedroom and told her that a knife had been involved in the fight. Once their mother turned on the lights, she saw blood all over the room and asked Young, "What did you do, Eric?" The complaint goes on to say their mother told Young to call the police. She noted to police that her sons fight a lot.

Young claimed it was Coppage who was the aggressor in the incident, but his mother refuted those claims. The mother’s daughter also told police that Young was jealous of Coppage and thought the family favored the 17-year-old. She also told authorities that Young had pulled a knife on Coppage a few weeks earlier, also noting that sometime in the last year, Young injured Coppage’s ribs and Coppage had to get medical attention because he had difficulty sleeping from his injury.

Young claimed the knife was thrown down a garbage chute, in which police did not find the item in a dumpster connected to the chute. Instead, they located a folding knife on the bedroom floor. A test concluded that blood was on the knife.

17-year-old killed in St. Paul stabbing, brother in custody

The mother told investigators that her two sons use knives to fight each other because "they can’t fight," as they have fought multiple times in the past in the same way.

Young continued to deny the knife was his and insisted that Coppage was the aggressor in the altercation. However, he said during the fight, he allegedly took the knife from Coppage and "blacked out," still denying that he had ever stabbed his brother. He admitted to punching Coppage with the knife in his right hand.

Coppage’s autopsy was done by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner, which showed nine separate sharp force injuries. His death was associated with a single penetrating wound that penetrated his heart.

Young has a prior felony domestic assault conviction involving a girlfriend.