'I just killed my brother,' caller tells dispatcher; Windham boy described as 'very happy'

"I just killed my brother," a male with a shaky voice told a Portage County sheriff's dispatcher early Tuesday morning.

A recording of the 911 call, lasting more than two minutes, was provided by the Portage County Sheriff's Office on Thursday. The male does not identify himself by name or provide the address and hung up 45 seconds into the call that was made at 1:44 a.m. But during the remaining 100 seconds or so, the sheriff's dispatcher informs a Windham police dispatcher that he had traced the call to 9538 Cloverleaf Road in Windham.

Windham murder: Man charged with murder in stabbing death of 11-year-old brother

Nathan A. McAtee, 18, is charged with first-degree felony aggravated murder in the fatal stabbing of his 11-year-old brother Joseph McAtee in an apartment at that address on Tuesday. According to a complaint Windham police filed in Portage County Municipal Court in Ravenna, Joseph was stabbed in the back, neck and stomach. The complaint identifies the apartment as Nathan McAtee's home.

"I stabbed him three times, once in the back, twice in the throat," the person told the dispatcher. "Come get me right now. I'll turn myself in."

As the dispatcher comes on the line, the male says "I'm hanging up," and is not heard again.

About two minutes after that call, another unidentified male made a shorter call to the sheriff's dispatch center. That caller was connected to a Windham dispatcher and begged her to send someone to the Cloverleaf Road address where, he said, someone was dead after being stabbed.

"Come on, please," he said.

The dispatcher tells him that Windham police are on their way and EMS is being dispatched.

Nathan McAtee was arraigned in Portage County Municipal Court on Wednesday afternoon and a $1 million bond was set. A second hearing is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

On the Record-Courier's Facebook page Wednesday, Herschel McAtee wrote, "He's a schizophrenic. He used to be my baby," referring to Nathan McAtee.

Another man, Kevin Bailey, wrote, "It breaks my heart my brother lost both his boys that day and I lost both my nephews."

Neither man immediately responded to an offer to talk about what happened.

Southeast school district 'reeling'

Joseph McAtee was a fifth grader at Southeast Intermediate School, District Superintendent Robert Dunn said on Thursday.

"What I tried to get were some collective voices from teachers, the school counselor, the principal, about Joey and they use words like very happy, he would skip through the halls, he loves Southeast, he really enjoyed his teachers," said Dunn. "He was working with the counselor to try to put together some gifts for his teachers since he was, you know, going to be going to a new school and he wanted them to remember him. And so he was trying to get some ideas for gifts for them, which I think speaks to his generosity."

Dunn said he believes Joseph started as a student in the district in second grade. His family had recently moved to Windham, Dunn said, but Joseph was still a student at Southeast, albeit in transition before he was to start at his new school.

Dunn said Joseph enjoyed playing the card game Uno, playing with his friends in the school cafeteria during lunch, and he was "just a really happy, well-adjusted student who loved his school and loved his teachers and was always looking for opportunities to tell a joke."

Joseph last attended classes on April 13, the final day of school before spring break.

"We're really reeling here at Southeast," Dunn said. "It's been really hard for our Pirate family, both for students and staff. It's been a really emotional week for us. We weren't made aware of the situation until Tuesday morning, which was our first day back from spring break. And so having to, you know, share that information with students and staff has been very difficult and having them process that has been very difficult."

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Dunn said this was the second tragedy the district has had to deal with in the last five or six years and it has developed a plan of action, with a crisis team including counselors for students, with staff also helping.

"It always adds layers when it's something that you wouldn't expect to happen and and so it's been a big shock and I'm just really proud that our Pirate family has come together," said Dunn, adding, "It's a lot different than a car accident or somebody who's been a student who's been ill for a couple of years. This one is just one that has a different shock value to it and a difficult time processing for kids, especially. It seems senseless and it's hard for not only the students to process, but adults as well. We're still trying to make some sense of it."

Dunn said that Nathan McAtee had also been a student in the district, starting in the ninth grade. But he withdrew in the 10th grade and Dunn said he does not know what happened to him after that. Dunn declined to comment further about him.

"Our our main thoughts are with [Joseph's] family and you know, any support we can provide them, we've tried to and we'd like to continue that offer in the future," he said.

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: "I just killed my brother," caller tells Portage County dispatcher