Houston Woman Begged For Her Life Before Being Stabbed to Death: Report

A police cruiser stands parked outside a home in Houston where a 75-year-old woman was stabbed to death on May 20, 2019. (Houston Police Department)

Texas police have revealed disturbing new details in the case of a 75-year-old Houston woman found stabbed to death in her own home.

Investigators cited by KTRK said 19-year-old Marco Cobos admitted to killing the elderly woman on May 20, and said that she pleaded for her life as he stabbed her to death.

Cobos also reportedly told detectives he left the slain woman’s home with some stolen cash, went to a store to buy food, and returned to the crime scene to eat.

The suspect, who is said to be homeless, was arrested Monday and charged with capital murder.

What Happened?

Etta Nugent was at her home on the 8100 block of Neff Street, according to the Houston Chronicle, when she was approached by Cobos who asked for help with his truck.

Police said Cobos had been sleeping in the vehicle—later found to have been stolen—for several days leading up to the slaying.

The Chronicle reported neighbors had taken notice of the broken-down vehicle and Cobos living out of it over the weekend.

Cobos reportedly asked Nugent for help fixing the truck.

According to KHOU, police said she was unable to assist Cobos because of her age.

He then allegedly forced his way into her home and stabbed her to death.

Investigators cited by KTRK said Cobos then took about $560 from Nugent’s home and drove her car to the store to buy food and supplies.

After returning from the store, he lingered at the crime scene for several hours, according to the report.

It is unclear under what circumstances police arrested Cobos, but Houston police said in a tweet shortly before 7 p.m. that “homicide investigators are on scene and are questioning a possible suspect.”

Police also said that “preliminary information is a female was found deceased inside a residence about 1:30 p.m.”

The Chronicle reported Cobos was arrested several doors down from Nugent’s home.

Neighbors told the publication the victim is survived by three children and six grandchildren.

Video: Special Ed Student Beaten By Group

According to reports, footage has surfaced of the brutal beating of a Long Beach special education student.

The video showed several boys knocking another boy to the ground, before repeatedly kicking and punching him as he tried to shield himself from the blows.

Rasheena Mccord, the boy’s mother, told the Long Beach Post that her son was attacked by a group of teenagers as he was walking home from school on May 15.

Mccord said her son tried to run away when the teens confronted him, but they caught up to him and beat him for several minutes.

*WARNING: graphic video

According to Long Beach police cited by CBSLA, officers were called to an area hospital following reports of the beating.

Police said they were investigating the incident as gang-related.

The victim’s mother told the Long Beach Post that incidents of groups of teenagers attacking other teens have been on the rise in recent days.

She and other parents gathered on Monday in front of the Long Beach Polytechnic High School to call for school administrators and police to take action to protect their children from attacks.

Authorities have increased the frequency of patrols in the area, according to CBSLA.

Mccord said her son suffered scrapes, bruises, and a torn eardrum.

Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, reported the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to BJS’s CVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

“From 1993 to 2017, the rate of violent victimization declined 74 percent, from 79.8 to 20.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older,” the U.S. Department of Justice stated (pdf).

Both studies are based on data up to and including 2017, the most recent year for which complete figures are available.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, from January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend.

Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period in which the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.