Around 4 a.m. last Sunday, neighbors of suburban Grand Junction, Colorado, were awakened by a man desperately running from house to house and knocking on doors, pleading for help as he tried to flee another man. The two eventually ended up in a front yard, where the man who had been fleeing was later found stabbed to death. A butcher knife and a serrated steak knife lay on the ground near his body.
"Lee, I'm not going to fight you," investigators say neighbors heard the first man say moments before the stabbing, Colorado media reported. Lee is 24-year-old Lee McDonald, who was found by police sitting on his front porch and covered in blood, then told officers, "I just wanted him to die," the Denver Post reported.
The man killed was 27-year-old Nicholas Potts, a former Barry University soccer player who lived in Miami.
Throughout the week a memorial Facebook page set up for Potts was flooded with warm thoughts, pictures, and memories of a much-beloved free spirit and soccer coach who had recently traveled to Brazil for the World Cup.
The Barry University men's soccer team's Facebook page also posted a condolence message, along with a picture of a long-haired, bearded Potts grinning behind an American flag while on a beach in Brazil:
In a voicemail message left for Riptide, Barry men's soccer coach Steve McCrath said Potts' death has left "lots of people with sad hearts."
Back in Colorado, police are still sorting through the details of his death. Potts was friends with McDonald and was in Colorado visiting while en route to Seattle, the Post reported. The two, along with McDonald's girlfriend, had gone out drinking Saturday night in Grand Junction, and when the three returned to McDonald's house, McDonald went inside while Potts and McDonald's girlfriend smoked marijuana in the car.
When McDonald came back out, he was "angry and jealous," Colorado TV station KREX reported, and began yelling at the two. A neighbor saw him head back inside and return with "something shiny," Denver newspaper Westword reported.
McDonald is being held in a Mesa County, Colorado jail on suspicion of first-degree murder.
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