According to a Dallas police arrest-warrant affidavit, a murder suspect accused of stabbing a man to death with a butcher knife told investigators he heard his father’s voice telling him to do it.
The Dallas Morning News reported that police said the crime was family violence-related. However, the police did not provide any information on the relationship between the victim and the suspect.
Jose Luis Cruz is suspected of fatally stabbing Everado Perez with a butcher’s knife at their home in the 2500 block of Britton Avenue, near Illinois Avenue and Lancaster Road.
According to the affidavit, Dallas police found Perez’s body on Saturday, December 4, at about 8:45 a.m. His body was wrapped in a blanket with tape around it. Responding officers arrested five people who were staying at the home, and four of them later told investigators that Cruz must have been involved with the death.
According to the affidavit, witnesses told investigators with the Dallas PD that Cruz and Perez had been drinking alcohol inside the victim’s trailer home the night before his death. The witnesses also revealed that Cruz had a propensity for violence when he drank.
The affidavit stated that another witness told investigators he saw Cruz’s hand bleeding the morning that Perez’s body was found. Police arrested Cruz and discovered that he had blood on his clothes and a deep cut on one hand.
According to the affidavit, Cruz confessed to stabbing Perez and wrapping his body in a blanket. He also told detectives that he had his father’s voice telling him to do it.
Cruz told detectives he threw the murder weapons into a trash bin near the trailer home before cleaning the crime scene with bleach, according to the affidavit.
According to The DMN, court records showed that Cruz had several convictions for other crimes in Dallas County. He was sentenced to two years in prison in 2015 for violating his probation in a case he pleaded guilty to two years prior.
He pleaded guilty to threatening a woman with a knife and was sentenced to two years in prison in 2017. He was also convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2001.
