A man charged with fatally stabbing an employee at a Kwik Trip store in Mankato early Tuesday allegedly told investigators that he was hearing voices telling him to set the building on fire.

Michael Lee Miller, 28, was charged Wednesday in Blue Earth County District Court with second-degree murder in the death of 34-year-old Dennis Vosika of Mankato. He’s being held at the Blue Earth County Jail.

The criminal complaint outlines an apparently random attack that ended in the fatal stabbing of Vosika, which was captured on surveillance video. There was another employee working who also witnessed parts of the incident, before escaping.

Vosika’s longtime girlfriend told the Mankato Free Press that he was someone devoted to his family, and was also an avid sports fan. She also recalled his resilience and positivity as he battled kidney disease.

According to the criminal complaint filed Wednesday against Miller:

Mankato police responded to the store on Madison Avenue just after 3 a.m. Tuesday, after getting a 911 call about someone breaking items in the building. The call disconnected, but the caller — a store employee working that morning alongside Vosika — called back to say they had fled the store.

Responding officers located Vosika, wounded, behind the counter. He later died at a hospital. An autopsy found he had been stabbed more than 40 times.

The other employee reported that a man — allegedly Miller — had entered the store with a large knife, went to the refrigerated foods section and started eating food. In an interview with police, Vosika’s co-worker said he told Miller he needed to pay for the items, and then went to a back room to collect surveillance video images of Miller to provide to law enforcement.

While in the back room, the co-worker saw Miller approaching, so he closed and locked the door. Miller allegedly smashed the window in the door, and the employee fled and called 911.

Surveillance video then allegedly shows Miller confronting Vosika behind the counter, throwing him to the ground and stabbing him, before leaving on foot.

Investigators used surveillance video and a description provided by the co-worker to identify Miller, who was arrested a short time later.

Miller allegedly asked authorities “if that guy survived.” He told detectives that he heard voices saying he needed to burn everything down, and that he walked to the Kwik Trip with the intent of setting it on fire.

After the one employee escaped through the back room, Miller allegedly told detectives he turned his attention to Vosika, who tried to grab the knife.

“When he tried to escape from me … that was a no for me. So I just, he tried to defend himself, but I got him,” Miller allegedly told detectives, according to the complaint.

Miller reportedly told police that he threw the knife in a dumpster — and investigators recovered a blood-stained knife from that dumpster.

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.