EVERETT — An Everett man who stabbed his victim 25 times out of “poor judgement and paranoia” pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder.
David Mitchell Kopp, 20, faces up to about 21 years in prison when he’s sentenced in the Aug. 20 killing of Derrick Everson.
Everson was 21 when he was attacked while walking through a wooded area near Broadway in Everett.
Investigators said Kopp approached Everson from behind and began his unprovoked fatal assault.
Kopp said the first stab wound was the result of him using bad judgment and being paranoid, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Matt Hunter wrote.
The defendant explained the other 24 wounds as “‘just take his suffering’ and to ‘get rid of one more mouth to conspire against me,’” court papers said.
Witnesses told police that Kopp, Everson and two other men had gathered to drink beer and smoke marijuana in some woods off Broadway known as Cardboard Hill. The men hung out for a while and then decided to walk to a nearby home.
That’s when a witness reported hearing a scream and saw Kopp and another friend run past. The man told investigators he found Everson on the ground, bleeding from multiple wounds.
A different witness told investigators that she called Kopp after the incident to ask what happened to Everson. She said Kopp apologized for stabbing Everson, and admitted to stabbing him 20 or more times, police said.
Everson’s family has said the slain man drew closer to God in the days before his death. The weekend before he was killed, he talked to a pastor and later told his family he had found God.
Kopp agreed to enter the guilty plea to second-degree murder because “the likely outcome of a jury trial would be exactly this charge,” Hunter said in Snohomish County Superior Court on Friday.
The 20-year-old Kopp spoke quietly during the brief hearing attended by both relatives of both Everson and Kopp. When a judge asked Kopp if he killed Everson, he replied, “Yes I did.”
Kopp is scheduled to be sentenced July 27.
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437, jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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