(Newser) – Kevin Adorno set out from Maryland last month to complete an item from his bucket list: bicycling all the way to Florida. When he reached Miami, he planned to propose to his girlfriend. Instead, he was on the phone with her Monday night outside a Vero Beach McDonald's—less than 140 miles away—when he was fatally stabbed, allegedly by a homeless man. Rene Herrera Cruz, 59, told police who arrested him that he believed Adorno was on the phone with people who wanted to attack him, WPBF reports. But police say the attack was unprovoked and apparently random, and Cruz has been charged with first-degree murder.

Cruz also admitted to hanging around at the McDonald's often, and said he worried that people were watching him there, the Hartford Courant reports; he'd called police from the same area the night before to complain that he thought someone would try to harm him. He said he'd never met or spoken to Adorno, but that he believed the 28-year-old Connecticut man was "directing the people to go after him," according to the arrest affidavit. Adorno's girlfriend told police she didn't hear an argument, just the phone dropping and then, eventually, sirens, TCPalm reports. Witnesses saw Adorno stumble inside the restaurant after being stabbed in the chest and arms and tried to help, but it was too late; police found him lying on the bathroom floor—carrying an engagement ring—and he was pronounced dead at a hospital. (Last month, a woman who beat cancer died in a freak "bucket list" fall.)

