A St. Paul man was sentenced to more than two decades in prison for fatally stabbing his neighbor in the heart as she tried to intervene in a domestic disturbance between him and his wife.

On Thursday, Ramsey County District Judge Jennifer Frisch sentenced Htoo Day to nearly 22 years on one count of second-degree murder in the death of Paw Boh Htoo last November.

Paw Boh Htoo, 29, had moved to Minnesota in 2011 from a refugee camp in Thailand and worked as a weaving project coordinator for the Roseville-based Karen Organization of Minnesota.

The organization provides services to refugees, most of whom were born in Myanmar. Her co-workers wrote a tribute to her after she died.

The married mother of two was studying to obtain her associate’s degree in legal interpreting and translating.

Htoo was helping Day’s wife and children make arrangements to stay someplace else until tensions cooled between the couple last Nov. 7 when the stabbing took place.

Day’s wife told investigators through an interpreter that two of the couple’s four children were “horsing around” in their apartment on Edmund Avenue in St. Paul two days earlier when one of them accidentally broke a mirror.

The children range in age from 4 to 12.

Day, 61, got angry and told the kids to leave. Day’s wife told him if they had to leave, she would go, too, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case.

They were staying in a different neighbor’s unit in the building when Day’s wife returned to her apartment a couple days later to get her youngest child.

That’s when, she said, Day grabbed her to prevent her from leaving and began threatening to kill her and her family if she followed through with her plans.

She eventually broke away and ran back to the other unit. Day followed, carrying a large knife in a shoulder bag, charges say.

When he got there, he saw Paw Boh Htoo also inside the unit.

Day asked her what she was doing there, according to the complaint, and Paw Boh Htoo responded that she had agreed to help his wife move in with relatives until their home situation cooled.

That’s when Day pulled the knife out of his bag and stabbed her in the chest, Day’s wife told investigators. Everyone else in the unit fled.

After police arrived, Paw Boh Htoo was taken to Regions Hospital, where she died.

Day was arrested in the entryway of the apartment building. He was holding a bottle of tequila while carrying the knife inside a bag, the complaint said.

In an interview with police, Day admitted to the stabbing and said he did it because he was drunk and angry that Paw Boh Htoo was trying to take his wife away from him.

He pleaded guilty to the murder charge in April.

His attorney, public defender Tamara Leja, declined to comment about his sentence.

She said Day also declined to comment at his hearing. Related Articles Suspect sends Rochester police suicidal messages, flees, dies causing head-on collision

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Htoo’s husband, cousin and aunt attended his sentencing.

Day has no criminal history in Minnesota. His wife told police that the couple arrived in Minnesota from Thailand in late 2016.