WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Winter Haven Detectives have arrested a man suspected of stabbing a 16-year-old to death at Publix in November.
Police say 19-year-old Teville Xavier Burgess of Lake Wales has been charged with manslaughter. Detectives arrested him on Thursday after a brief chase.
According to the initial report, the stabbing happened during a fight which broke out inside the store. Burgess initially told detectives he was jumped by an "unknown" group of people, one of whom he stabbed in self defense. But detectives said the evidence told a different story.
According to an affidavit, Burgess had exchanged a few words with that same group of people in the parking lot and gone inside the Publix where he bought a can of soup and a paring knife with a 3.5-inch blade, the latter of which, he took out of the packaging and armed himself with before he was even done purchasing it.
When the "unknown" group of people approached, Burgess started the fight by swinging the soup can into someone's face. A fight broke out before someone said, "he's got a knife," causing the crowd to scatter. Burgess began to chase a member of the group down an aisle. That person fell to the ground. The 16-year-old victim tried to protect the other person from serious injury and ended up being fatally stabbed in the chest by Burgess.
The affidavit then said that Burgess hid the knife until a witness convinced him to put it back in his pocket until officers asked for it.
