Man Arrested in Golden Valley Now Charged With First-Degree Murder

A man who in connection with the death of a Mankato woman now faces a first-degree murder charge.

The Mankato Free Press reported Thursday that a grand jury charged Damone Christopher Williams-Tillman with first-degree murder and several other charges, including kidnapping and domestic abuse.

He is charged with killing Josselyn Bishop, his former girlfriend and a fellow Minnesota State University-Mankato student, on July 8.

A passerby found Bishop lying in the median near the intersection of North Victory and Sohler drives in Mankato, according to a Mankato Police Department news release. She had been stabbed multiple times.

Williams-Tillman is known to others as Chris Tillman.

Assistant Blue Earth County Attorney Pat McDermott presented his case to the grand jury beginning Wednesday morning, according to the Free Press. The grand jury started and ended deliberating Thursday morning.

, 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. Tillman told investigators he blacked out at that point, but remembered having a knife, and the next time he remembered seeing Bishop, she was bleeding and lying 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. 

Investigators found Tillman on July 9 at the home of his father, Damone Tillman, in Golden Valley. They interviewed him in Mankato and subsequently arrested him. He was booked into the Blue Earth County Jail at around 8 a.m., and that is where he remains.

Criminal defense attorney Barry V. Voss is representing Tillman, according to court documents.