Criminal Complaint: Tillman Details Deadly Afternoon For Investigators

Damone Christopher Williams-Tillman was charged Tuesday morning with second-degree murder in the death last Friday of Josselyn Bishop, a fellow student at Minnesota State University-Mankato who had recently broken up with Williams-Tillman.

Bishop had multiple stab wounds when she was found Friday afternoon near the intersection of North Victory and Sohler drives in Mankato, and she died at the scene.

Chris Tillman, as he is known to others, is being held in the Blue Earth County Jail. The charge of second-degree murder is the most severe attorneys could bring without convening a grand jury, according to Pat McDermott, assistant county attorney. Tillman's first opportunity to enter a plea is a July 21 hearing in Blue Earth County Court. If convicted of the charge, he faces up to 40 years in prison.

The criminal complaint from county attorneys contains details Tillman reportedly told investigators after they found and interviewed him Saturday morning at his father's Golden Valley home. Police formally arrested Tillman after interviewing him.

According to the complaint, Bishop and Tillman, both 19, were driving in Tillman's car and discussing their relationship when Bishop told Tillman she had been seeing someone else. According to the complaint, Tillman told investigators he blacked out at that point, but remembered having a knife, and that the next time he remembered seeing Bishop, she was bleeding and laying in the grass.

Investigators say Tillman later recalled more details, among them that after first stabbing Bishop once in the car, she ran from the car and eventually fell down, and that he pursued her down a sidewalk and continued stabbing her. Tillman reportedly told investigators he didn't know how many times he stabbed her, nor did he want to know, and that he had closed his eyes during the attack. 

According to investigators, Tillman told them he threw the knife and Bishop's cell phone out the car window over a bridge near water.

The Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office, in its autopsy, concluded Bishop died from "multiple sharp force injuries."

Bail for Tillman has been set at $400,000 "with conditions," such as not to go within a certain distance of Bishop's family, and $1.5 million without conditions, McDermott said.