St. Paul man charged in killing of mother of 2-year-old child in Frogtown home

A St. Paul man was charged Monday with fatally stabbing the mother of his 2-year-old daughter inside his home late last week.

Joseph Davis, 34, was arrested early Saturday morning and made his first court appearance Monday in Ramsey County District Court. He faces one count of second-degree murder.

The victim was identified on Monday afternoon by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s office as Christine Morris, 33, of St. Paul.

St. Paul officers responded just after 5 a.m. Friday to a house in the 300 block of Edmund Avenue in the Frogtown neighborhood to perform a welfare check. They had received a call that Davis had told a family member he killed his child’s mother and left the toddler at home, according to the criminal complaint.

Officers checked the house and did not see signs of a struggle.

Police found the toddler on a couch in the living room, and Morris’ body in an upstairs bedroom covered by a blanket, charges say. She had visible stab wounds and did not have a pulse. Morris was pronounced dead by medics at 7 a.m.

An autopsy by the Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed it was a homicide and found Morris had wounds to her head, neck, left arm, chest and back.

Officers spoke with another woman who had two children with Davis. She said Davis left her a message saying he wanted to see his two other kids before turning himself him for the killing, according to the charges.

An attorney listed for Davis did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday afternoon.

The charges say Morris’ friends arrived at the house on Edmund Avenue, and one told police that Davis had been messaging Morris the night before the homicide, accusing her of cheating on him.

Morris messaged the friend about 11 p.m. to let her know she made it home OK, charges say. Another friend showed officers texts from the victim from September, which said if she or her daughter ended up dead or missing that Davis would be responsible.

The officers found Morris’ phone abandoned near Carty Park, about a mile and a half from the house where she was killed.

Officers tracked Davis to an apartment in the 2800 block of 31st Avenue S. in Minneapolis, where a Minneapolis SWAT team arrested Davis. He refused to voluntarily exit the apartment before he was arrested, charges say.

Davis allegedly admitted to investigators that he stabbed Morris with a knife. He told police she had been cheating on him for years and that was the reason he killed her, according to charges.

Davis has multiple convictions for domestic violence going back to 2023 that targeted Morris.

The Friday killing was St. Paul’s third homicide of 2025, compared with eight at this point in 2024. None of this year’s St. Paul homicides have been shooting deaths. It came during a week in which Minneapolis police investigated the shooting deaths of six people.