December 21, 2017 04:40 PM
UPDATED December 22, 2017 08:49 AM
The victim was face down, his body covered in stab wounds and blood, police said. A distraught woman was kneeling next to his body.
“Lemar, can you hear me?” the woman screamed, according to court records reviewed by the Denver Post. “Can you hear me? No!”
Police know what the woman said because it was all recorded on Snapchat, court documents said. The man recording the video — and then broadcasting the bloody aftermath to his friends over Snapchat — was Nick Vinson, 19, of Aurora, Colo., according to police.
The bloodied victim was Vinson’s stepfather, Oscar Lemar Owensby, 50, whom Vinson had stabbed repeatedly, according to the Aurora Police Department. Vinson’s mother, Celena Vinson, was the woman screaming next to the dying stepfather, the Post reports.
Vinson is being held at the Arapahoe County Jail without bond, according to jail records, on charges of first degree murder. He’s scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 8.
In video of the Dec. 14 stabbing, police say, Vinson himself admitted to committing the crime, the Aurora Sentinel reports. The mother of a girl who had viewed the gruesome Snapchat called police to report it. Celena Vinson called police to report the stabbing as well.
“Hey guys, I just killed him,” Vinson can be heard saying on Snapchat video police reviewed, the Post reports. “I just killed him. I just killed him.”
The stepfather, Owensby, was taken to the hospital after police arrived at the scene around 7 p.m., according to the Aurora Police Department. Owensby died of his injuries at the hospital, police said.
By the time police arrived at the Aurora, Colo. home, Vinson had fled. Later that night police were able to contact Vinson by phone and convince him to come home so they could arrest him, the Aurora Sentinel reports.
Around 7 p.m. — about the time police arrived at the scene — authorities say that Vinson called his younger brother to tell him that Owensby had “wanted to throw him out of the house,” the Denver Post reports.
Vinson told Aurora police that his stepfather had gotten into an argument with him earlier in the day over text message. The argument started because Owensby wanted 19-year-old Vinson to help out around the house more and contribute financially, the Sentinel reports.
During that exchange, the stepfather and stepson decided to have a fist fight, the Post reports.
Later that day, Owensby tried egging Vinson into fighting him, Vinson told police. Anticipating his stepfather hitting him, Vinson said he got a hold of a knife and stabbed Owensby in the neck — then stabbed him six to eight more times, the Post reports, including in the neck, back, side and left shoulder.
That’s when Vinson took out his cell phone and started recording, the Sentinel reports, posting the video to Snapchat.
The basement of the home was covered in Owensby’s arterial blood when police arrived, the Post reports.
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