Suspect in Auburn stabbing arrested

The suspect in the Wednesday stabbing of an Auburn man has turned himself in to authorities.

Johnathon Sepp Etterer, 20, of Birmingham, Ala. was charged with second-degree assault around 2 a.m. Thursday. Auburn police had been searching for Etterer after his roommate, Richard K. Straus, 20, was found stabbed at Edge Apartments on South College Street around 3:30 p.m., police said.

Straus, who was taken to the East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika, has been upgraded from critical to fair condition, police said.

"It appears that this incident was a dispute between roommates," police added.

The university put out an AU alert to its students at 2 p.m. Wednesday informing them of the stabbing and encouraging them to be cautious. The system is the university's emergency communications method that allows students, faculty and staff to receive time-sensitive emergency messages in the form of e-mail, voice and text messages.

Neither men are students at Auburn University, the college's Web site states.