"I jooked him," the suspect told Branson police shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday. By "jooked" he apparently meant "stabbed," and police say his victim is lucky to be alive.

Lenworth Houston, 32, of St. Anns, Jamaica, told police he and the suspect had been arguing over a woman in a hotel room at the Payless Inn, 1900 W. Highway 76.

Houston says the suspect stabbed him in the back with what police describe as a 12-inch kitchen knife. "I observed a wound just to the right of Houston's spine about the area just below the rib cage," a police office wrote in his report.

Houston is expected to recover. He's in a Springfield hospital. Formal charges are expected against the suspect.