ONLY ON 3: Man admits stabbing girlfriend at hospital, considers suicide

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A man is in custody today after stabbing his girlfriend at New Hanover Regional Medical Center last night. Today, Josef Anthony Randolph, 28, confessed to the crime during a jailhouse interview with WWAY.

Randolph says he was visiting his girlfriend’s mother with his girlfriend and his daughter when it all happened. He said he and his girlfriend got into an argument about whether he had taken his medicine for bipolar disorder. He says rage overcame him, and he took a knife out of his pocket and stabbed her once in the neck.

“It was just like a tap, like it was once. It wasn’t like a repeated thing,” he said.

Randolph says he got upset when his girlfriend asked if he had taken his medicine for bipolar disorder. He also said was under the influence of alcohol when he pulled a knife from his restaurant job out of his pocket.

“A little, tiny, old knife that you just like cut vegetables with,” Randolph said.

Randolph is charged with assault with a deadly weapon, assault by strangulation, assault and battery and child abuse, because it happened in front of his daughter.

“My child was right there and witnessed it,” Randolph said. “That is the worst thing you could ever do.”

The hospital says its police force took Randolph into custody, but he escaped. Randolph saw his departure differently.

“I was sitting there, and I didn’t have no handcuffs. I wanted to go smoke a cigarette, so I left,” he said. “I just went up the street. I called them where I was at. I ain’t running like on the run.”

Wilmington Police arrested Randolph at a home on South 15th Street early Thursday morning.

Sitting in jail, Randolph says he now has nothing to live for.

“Suicide. That’s all I’m thinking,” he said. “And if you don’t see me soon, you know where I’m at.”

Randolph said he deeply regrets what he did and that his girlfriend was the love of his life. The hospital could not give us her condition.

Department of Corrections records show Randolph has prior convictions for drug possession. He also has a pending court date in Pender County for traffic charges and a June appearance schedule in New Hanover County for resisting a public officer and intoxicated and disruptive, according to court records.