7-year-old fatally stabbed in Fort Worth suburb was ‘joyful,’ loved baseball, family says
A Fort Worth-area family gathered Sunday afternoon to mourn the death of a 7-year-old boy who was fatally stabbed Saturday night in Haltom City.
Jacob Brito loved baseball, Spider-Man and his family, his brother-in-law said.
The boy died Saturday night at the hospital after he was stabbed multiple times at his home in the 4900 block of Orien Street, Haltom City police said Sunday.
On Sunday afternoon, at least a dozen family members sat on chairs or talked on the lawn outside the house on Orien Street. Someone set up an enlarged photo of Jacob beaming with a baseball bat.
Jacob’s older brother, 20-year-old Isidro Brito, faces a capital murder charge in Jacob’s death. Police arrested Brito a few blocks from the family’s home, Haltom City police said. Detectives haven’t determined a motive for the fatal stabbing.
Jesus Ochoa, 23, who is married to Jacob’s older sister, said the couple thought of Jacob as a son. They helped raise him and took care of him since he was a baby.
“Jacob was a joyful person, very caring, he loved to put other people in front of him,” Ochoa said. “He was very giving to anybody.”
Jacob loved baseball and had been playing since he was 3 years old. His teammates knew him as someone who put others before himself, Ochoa said.
He liked watching toy reviews on YouTube and loved “The Incredibles” — he liked to imagine himself as the speedy superhero Dash.
Haltom City police arrested Isidro Brito at Katrine Street and Katrine Court. He had an apparently self-inflicted wound to his upper body, authorities said.
The 20-year-old was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated, and then taken to jail. Brito was scheduled to appear for a virtual hearing on Sept. 29 on a previous assault with bodily injury charge involving a family member, according to Tarrant County criminal court records. The case was in County Criminal Court No. 5.
The assault report occurred on May 18, 2019, at the Haltom City home where the fatal stabbing occurred Saturday. Information on the alleged victim in the assault case was not available on Sunday.
Ochoa said the Brito family is asking for prayers and for people to avoid making assumptions about what happened to Jacob.
“(People) don’t really know what happened, they’re just jumping off of what they hear,” he said.
The family did not want to talk about specifics of the case or what happened Saturday night.
The family was also asking for donations to help pay for Jacob’s funeral. As of Sunday, they raised about $4,000 through a GoFundMe.
“You don’t really plan for a funeral for a 7-year-old,” he said. “Nobody put money aside for that, it caught us by surprise.”
.jpg "Isidro Brito (pb).jpg")
This story was originally published August 2, 2020 at 6:12 PM.
