A middle school student is dead after being brutally stabbed in a random attack as she rode her skateboard to her mother’s house in a story that has received little media coverage.
Police say Jupiter Paulsen, a 14-year-old white female living in Fargo, North Dakota, was skateboarding from her father’s house to her mother’s house at 7 a.m. on Friday morning when she was randomly choked and stabbed more than 20 times, reports say.
The brutal attack reportedly went on for 20 minutes and was partially caught on security video footage from a nearby store in the West Acres neighborhood of Fargo. Days after the attack, Paulsen’s father, Robert Paulsen, said that she was declared brain dead and was taken off life support with the hope of harvesting her organs to “try and save some lives.”
Arthur Prince Kollie, a 23-year-old black man with no fixed address, has been arrested in connection with the attack, and prosecutors say he is facing a murder charge. On Monday, a judge set Kollie’s bail at $1 million, cash only.
Kollie is no stranger to law enforcement, and at the time of the attack, he was on probation for assaulting a police officer in 2017. In May of this year, Kollie pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm within city limits, being a felon in possession of a gun, and a drug charge. He was sentenced to 18 months supervised probation and 27 days in jail, but records indicated he was released early due to time already served, allowing him to be on the streets by last Friday.
Kollie reportedly told police he smoked methamphetamine the day before the attack and had no recollection of attacking Paulsen the next morning.
Several users on social media reacted to the gruesome murder by wondering out loud why the tragedy has received relatively little media coverage.
“A Fargo 14 year-old was stabbed over 20 times, beat & strangled by a complete stranger when she was out skateboarding,” photojournalist Rebecca Brannon tweeted. “Her attacker was on probation for a conviction for assault… just why is there so little coverage of this story?”
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A Fargo 14 year-old was stabbed over 20 times, beat & strangled by a complete stranger when she was out skateboarding.
Her attacker was on probation for a conviction for assault… just why is there so little coverage of this story?
Say her name #JupiterPaulsen pic.twitter.com/7LS52wWuDm
— Rebecca Brannon (@RebsBrannon) June 9, 2021
A GoFundMe page has been established to help Paulsen’s family with expenses, and in the latest update, her father announced that she had died and thanked everyone for their support.
“We just got word from the Doctor today that Our baby girl is too far gone and there isn’t anything they can do,” Robert Paulsen wrote. “Just to gather family and to say our goodbyes. This is a very dark moment in our lives. Thank you all for the prayers, shares, and donations.”
