White Bear Lake knife attacker receives 7½-year prison sentence

Mason Fike chose not to attend Friday’s sentencing of the man who repeatedly stabbed him on their White Bear Lake street just over a year ago.

Fike, now 22 and a senior at St. John’s University in Collegeville, said in his victim impact statement — read in a Ramsey County courtroom by his brother — that his decision was not because he was afraid of his attacker, Jeffrey Thomas Rice.

“I am simply done wasting my life and time being in the same room with someone as worthless as you,” the statement read. “I have never been afraid of you, and I never will be.”

Rice, 20, stabbed Fike in the chest, kidney, bladder, spleen, back and stomach after he stormed outside and confronted Fike, who was on a walk with his girlfriend in the early morning hours of July 27, 2024.

“That night, I know what you wanted and attempted to do, and so do you, Jeffrey. You wanted to kill me,” Fike said in his statement. “And I do not need a trial to know that.”

Rice already knew his own fate before the hearing: a 7½-year prison sentence, which was set by an agreement he reached with the prosecution in August for pleading guilty to first-degree assault. An attempted murder charge was dismissed as part of the plea deal.

Fike’s mom, Gail Fike, told the court that Rice was “given what I consider a gift … only having to serve 90 months in prison for the pain, fear and lasting trauma that you have caused. That feels like a minimal consequence.”

Rice and Fike didn’t know each other, despite living on the same block, said Fike’s father, Jeff Fike. He said a jail mugshot of Rice included in a newspaper report on the stabbing showed them what he looked like: “The face of the person who almost took my son’s life.”

‘Selfish, violent actions’

Fike was home on summer break from college. He and his girlfriend wanted to have a date night, so they decided to go for a walk to look at the stars, his mother said.

“The kind of evening when families should be able to take a walk and enjoy their neighborhood without fear,” she said.

Fike’s girlfriend would later tell police that he yelled at kids riding bikes, telling them it was past their bedtimes, the charges said. It was just before 2 a.m.

She said a man, who police later identified as Rice, then came outside from a house and began yelling at them. Fike walked back toward the street in front of the house and met Rice at the street. She said Rice threw the first punch at Fike before stabbing him.

When officers arrived in the 2100 block of Southwood Drive, Fike was on his back in grass near a curb. His girlfriend was applying pressure to a large wound to his lower abdomen.

He was rushed to Regions Hospital, where he was “lying on that operating table, fighting for his life because of your selfish, violent actions,” Jeff Fike said in court Friday.