MUNCIE, Ind. – After he confessed to fatally stabbing his roommate on Thursday, 19-year-old Jaylin E. Ammon was asked how he felt.

“Well, this is my cross to bear,” the Muncie man told police. He added that he would now refer to himself as a “martyr.”

Ammon – who lived with four other men in an apartment at 219 W. Seventh St. – was being held without bond in the Delaware County jail, preliminarily charged with murder.

Authorities allege that about noon Thursday, Ammon plunged a knife, seemingly without provocation, into the neck of one of his roommates, Steven A. Cook, who had observed his 27th birthday on Sunday.

Cook – who suffered a cut artery, according to dispatch traffic – fled from the apartment and was standing in the building’s side yard, bleeding profusely, when a neighbor approached, urging him to lie down.

That man placed a call to 911, then tried to apply pressure to the stabbing victim’s wound until authorities arrived, police reported.

Cook was taken by ambulance to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Delaware County Coroner Scott Hahn said an autopsy would be conducted Friday.

Witnesses said Ammon left the apartment and walked down a nearby street, asking residents if he could borrow their telephones.

A neighbor persuaded Ammon to return to his apartment and speak with police.

When he arrived back at the crime scene – shirtless and barefoot, and with blood splattered on his face, hair, hands and forearms – the Muncie man was ordered to the ground by officers and taken into custody.

A folding pocket knife, reported to be covered in blood, was removed from his pants pocket.

When being interviewed at City Hall, Ammon reportedly told detectives he was upset over recent changes in behavior by others at his apartment, which he blamed on drug use.

He said when he woke up Thursday, Cook was asleep in a chair in a “messy” room, adding that his roommate “brushed him off” when he demanded that he leave.

Ammon said he then stabbed Cook in the neck.

“There was disagreement about what was going on in the home,” Muncie police Capt. Joe Todd said, resulting in “a real quick, fatal stabbing.”

The mortally wounded Cook escaped from the apartment through a window, according to Ammon.

The other roommates were not in the apartment when the attack occurred, Todd said.

Ammon – who indicated that friends called him “Jesus” – said he wanted to “purge the wicked.”

Court records reflect no prior charges against the Muncie teenager.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. Follow him on Twitter: @DouglasWalkerSP.