Capital murder suspect stabbed man while trying to steal truck, Fort Worth cops say
A capital murder suspect who was arrested after stabbing a man to death inside a pickup truck told Fort Worth police that the stabbing victim tried to force him into sexual contact, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The homicide detective who wrote the affidavit concluded that the suspect’s life was not in immediate danger and that he could have gotten out of the man’s truck but instead tried to steal the truck at knifepoint.
The suspect, 39-year-old Edward Trevino, turned himself in to police after the stabbing was reported Saturday night in the 2400 block of Lillian Street.
Police said they found the man who was stabbed, identified by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office as 54-year-old Andres Valdez, lying on the sidewalk near his pickup truck. Officers and Fort Worth Fire Department personnel provided medical care, but Valdez died at the scene, police said.
Affidavit details suspect’s account of fatal stabbing
About 2.5 miles away from the crime scene, Trevino approached an officer in the 2500 block of NE 28th Street about 11:50 p.m. Saturday and told the officer that he believed he had stabbed somebody, according to police.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Star-Telegram on Tuesday, Trevino told the officer that, “A dude tried to do some homosexual stuff to me. Alright. I stabbed him.”
In a voluntary statement to homicide detectives who interviewed him at their office, Trevino said he had been using methamphetamine and had not eaten or slept for two days. Detective Matt Anderson wrote in the affidavit that Trevino said he spent much of the day at a park near the river and a Shell gas station off Sylvania Avenue attempting to sober up.
Trevino told detectives that a man who he did not know, later identified as Valdez, approached him while walking a dog and asked if he wanted cocaine and Valdez later returned driving a 2016 Chevy Silverado pickup truck and offered him a ride, according to the affidavit.
They drove to a home where many people were drinking in the street and the man tried to find cocaine by calling another person and then drove to a bar area near the intersection of Riverside Drive and Sylvania Avenue, Trevino said in his statement.
Valdez bought beers and tacos for the suspect that evening and disclosed he was “bisexual and made sexual comments while they were parked near the bar,” Trevino stated, according to the affidavit. Trevino alleged that the man repeatedly “touched him, rubbed him, grabbed his arm/chest, and held his hand in a manner that made him uncomfortable,” while Trevino said he told the man “he was not homosexual and asked him to stop touching him,” the affidavit states.
Trevino told detectives that “felt uncomfortable” and he asked the man to take him to his sister’s home. The man allegedly refused and asked Trevino to look at the warning lights on the dashboard, Trevino told police. The man then grabbed the back of Trevino’s neck when he leaned over to look at the dashboard, Trevino told the detectives, “causing him to believe the man intended to force sexual contact,” the affidavit states.
Trevino told police that he was frightened and he took out a knife to scare and force the man out of the truck. The suspect also admitted telling the man to throw his phone out the window and stated he intended to take the truck to get away from the area because the man said he had friends nearby, the detective wrote in the affidavit.
Valdez did not get out of the truck and tried to push Trevino back inside the vehicle while they struggled inside the truck, Trevino said. The suspect told detectives that did not “intentionally stab the man” and claimed “the knife slipped during the struggle, possibly poking” the victim two times. According to detectives, Valdez was stabbed in the chest and the back.
Trevino told the detectives that he fled the area on foot after hearing someone talk about getting a gun and he yelled in the neighborhood for help, telling people the man “had attempted to rape him,” according to the affidavit. He discarded the knife while running, the suspect told detectives.
The suspect repeatedly said that “he was exhausted, traumatized, sleep-deprived, and not in the right state of mind during the incident,” according to the affidavit.
According to the affidavit, two witnesses told detectives that they arrived at their home on Lillian Street about 10 p.m. and did not see anyone but about 15 minutes later one of them went outside and saw Valdez lying on the sidewalk. Detectives found a blood trail between where Valdez lay and the driver’s side of the Silverado, according to the affidavit.
Before the killing, Trevino could have exited the truck through the front right passenger door or the passenger window, “which was completely open, and walk away from the situation,” Detective Anderson wrote in the affidavit. “Based on the investigation, detectives determined that the use of deadly force was not justified under the circumstances,” police said in a news release on Tuesday.
Investigators further determined that Trevino attempted to take Valdez’s pickup, which “is valued at approximately $21,670 according to Kelley Blue Book,” police said.
Trevino faces a charge of capital murder while attempting to commit robbery and also faces a charge of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impair, according to Tarrant County Jail records. No bond amount had been set Tuesday.