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Collin Potter, 30, of Quantico, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder while armed for the butchering of Vongell Lugo on Jan. 6, 2019, in which Potter stabbed his victim 42 times, federal officials said. The incident began at approximately 4 a.m. when the two were together in Lugo’s Garfield House apartment on Wisconsin Avenue, police said.
Potter — who according to NBC Washington and the Navy Times was a Navy Corpsman — slugged Lugo in the face before grabbing a kitchen knife that he used to stab him 42 times in the head, neck, and torso, killing him in an unprovoked attack, police said.
Not once did Lugo fight back, investigators said, aside from crying out for help. That got the attention of neighbors, who called the police as Potter scrambled in a misguided attempt to cover up the murder, authorities said.
Potter proceeded in vain to attempt to clean the murder weapon in the kitchen sink, then pulled Lugo’s dead body into the hallway of the building. It was then that he was met by members of the Metropolitan Police Department, who arrived at the scene and found Potter naked, uninjured, and covered in Lugo’s blood.
He was arrested at the apartment and has been in custody since. Sentencing is set for Friday, April 14.
Lugo immigrated to the US from Trinidad and Tobago in 1994, and went on to graduate from Watkins Mill High School in Gaithersburg, MD, in 2000, his obituary says.
He "put himself through" the University of Maryland, earning his BA in sociology, before enjoying a successful career in retail management, and then executive recruitment, the obituary reads.
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