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A 21-year-old man who police said was high on cocaine was arrested in the fatal stabbing of his cousin in east Fort Worth early Sunday.
Fort Worth police officers responded about 2:45 a.m. to the stabbing at the 2100 block of Handley Drive, after a man reported that Jaykel Vanegas-Martinez confessed to stabbing his female cousin, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by the Star-Telegram.
The man, whose name has been redacted, told officers that he had given a ride to Vanegas-Martinez to an area off East Lancaster Avenue. According to the man, as Vanegas-Martinez got out of his car he confessed to him about stabbing his cousin with a knife and made a “cutting motion across his throat,” the affidavit reads.
The friend initially thought Vanegas-Martinez was joking, but decided to call the police once he returned home. The man then directed officers to the suspect’s apartment in the 6100 block of Farnswood Drive. Officers forcefully entered the residence to find a deceased naked woman on the bedroom floor in the back of the apartment.
“She also had a large incised wound across the front of her neck which was an injury not compatible with human life,” detectives wrote in the affidavit.
Officers found a large knife on the kitchen counter and clothes on the bathroom floor, both covered in blood, the affidavit read.
Officers received information that Vanegas-Martinez was in the area of 4700 block of East Lancaster Avenue and had called a friend for another ride. Officers found him near a shopping complex, and he had injuries that looked like he was involved in a fight, detectives wrote in the affidavit. He was taken into custody without incident.
During an interview with the homicide detectives, Vanegas-Martinez said he arrived home about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday and smoked crack cocaine on the balcony before lying down to sleep.
Vanegas-Martinez told detectives that when he woke up, retrieved a large knife and went to his cousin’s room, who was naked and asleep in her bed lying face down when he began stabbing her in the back.
The woman rolled over and begged him to stop, but he told the detectives that he continued to stab her an unknown number of times. He then changed clothes, took a shower, and left the knife in the apartment, and called his friend to pick him up, the affidavit stated.
The woman will be publicly identified by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s office.
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Shambhavi covers crime, law enforcement and other breaking news in Fort Worth and Tarrant County. She graduated from the University of North Texas and previously covered a variety of general assignment topics in West Texas. She grew up in Nepal.