DULUTH - A Duluth man charged in a fatal stabbing last year at the Runway Bar and Grill in Hermantown pleaded guilty Friday to a lesser charge of manslaughter.
In the plea agreement, Michael Bailor, 21, admitted to stabbing Derrick A. Wilson, 27, on Nov. 10. The single stab wound severed Wilson's femoral artery in the upper thigh, causing him to bleed to death.
It was Hermantown's first homicide.
Bailor was initially charged with unintentional second-degree murder. He entered a guilty plea to an amended charge of second-degree manslaughter in St. Louis County District Court.
So instead of facing almost 14 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder, Bailor faces a maximum of 58 months, or just short of five years.
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"We enter plea agreements so we can have some certainty in the outcome and closure for the family," said Leslie Beiers, who heads the criminal division of the St. Louis County Attorney's Office.
The knifing was the apparent culmination of an argument and scuffle outside the bar when a woman and Wilson confronted Bailor, demanding he return money he allegedly had taken from her "brother," according to police reports.
Bailor maintained he acted in self-defense because he believed he was being robbed. That self-defense claim contributed to the case's uncertainty, Beiers said.
The defense plans to make a motion for a less than 58-month sentence. But Beiers said the prosecution has not agreed to that.
Bailor has been held in St. Louis County Jail since the incident. A pre-sentence investigation will be conducted before Bailor's sentencing, scheduled for Oct. 13.
