Suspect says he stabbed another man in Oak Cliff because he heard voices

A 47-year-old man told police he stabbed another man to death Saturday in east Oak Cliff because he heard his father's voice telling him to do so, according to an arrest warrant affidavit from the Dallas police.

José Luis Cruz was booked into the Dallas County jail charged with murder. His attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

Cruz is suspected of stabbing Everardo Perez, whose age is unknown, with a butcher knife in a mobile home located in the 2500 block of Britton Avenue near Illinois Avenue and Lancaster Road.

Police said Cruz lived with Perez and that the crime is classified as “family violence.” No further information was released about the relationship between the two.

Police found Perez's body around 8:45 a.m. Saturday. wrapped in a blanket and tied with tape. Officers arrested five people who lived in the home, and four of them told investigators that Cruz was responsible, the affidavit says.

Witnesses told police that Cruz and Perez were drinking alcohol inside the trailer the night before their deaths. The affidavit states based on testimony that "Cruz has a tendency to become violent when he drinks."

A witness told police he saw Cruz's hand bleeding the morning Perez's body was found.

When police took Cruz into custody, a detective saw that the suspect had blood on his clothing and a deep cut on one hand, according to the affidavit.

Cruz confessed to stabbing Perez and wrapping him in a blanket, telling the detective that “his father's voice told him to do it,” the affidavit says. Cruz told the detective that he then threw the murder weapon into a dumpster near the trailer and then cleaned the area with bleach, according to the affidavit.

Cruz has convictions for other crimes in Dallas County, according to court records. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to threatening a woman with a knife and was sentenced to two years in prison.

He was sentenced to two years in prison in 2015 after violating his probation in a case where he confessed to strangling someone in 2013 in the same place where Perez's body was found. At that time he was found guilty of assault for family violence.

Cruz had also been convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2001. His first court record shows another assault conviction in 1996.

The suspect remains in custody in the Dallas County Jail on $250,000 bail.