Man Indicted in Fatal Stabbing Aboard Red Line Metro Train

A 19-year-old D.C. man was indicted Wednesday in the fatal stabbing of a recent college graduate aboard a Metro train on the Fourth of July.

Prosecutors say Jasper Spires beat and stabbed Kevin Sutherland, 24, on a Red Line train the afternoon of July 4, 2015, near the NoMa-Gallaudet University Metro station.

Prosecutors say Spires, then 18, attacked Sutherland at random.

Sutherland, a recent American University graduate who'd interned for Rep. Jim Himes, was stabbed more than 30 times, police said.

Spires is also accused of trying to rob Sutherland and two others aboard the train, including a senior citizen, and of assaulting a fourth passenger.

On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted Spires on charges of first-degree murder while armed (premeditated and felony murder) with aggravating circumstances, assault with a dangerous weapon, armed robbery of a senior citizen, armed robbery, and carrying a weapon outside a home or business.

Spires, who attended Louisburg College in North Carolina, was admitted to psychiatric facilities at least two times in the three months before the attack, The Washington Post reported. He displayed "bizarre and combative behavior" at one facility and needed to be restrained, the Post reported.

In August, a judge ordered additional evaluations of Spires' mental competency, court records show. 

"Yes, my client has mental problems, but he is innocent of these charges," Spires' lawyer, Antoini Jones said during that August court hearing, the Post reported. "D.C. police need to catch the real killer. No one identified my client as the killer."

Spires is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

He faces a maximum of life in prison.