An intruder stabbed a husband and wife in their Old Spring Road home using a screwdriver and knife, before fleeing through the back door just after 8 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 5, Murrieta Police said.
Police later found the suspect in a ravine behind another home on Wild Flower Drive and arrested him on suspicion of homicide and attempted homicide.
A woman was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver and her husband had been stabbed with a knife, she reported in a 911 call, by “an unknown person” that had come into their home and attacked them. The suspect left the home and the woman believed her husband was dead, police said in a statement. The stabbings happened in a neighborhood north of Murrieta Hot Springs Road and east of the 215 Freeway.
The husband, a 70-year-old man, was declared dead at the scene, according to Murrieta police. The woman was given medical aid and police began searching for a suspect.
When a man matching the suspect’s description was found in the ravine, he did not comply with officers, police said, and hid in bushes. Police deployed a K-9 and the man was taken into custody and determined to be the suspect in the stabbings.
The woman was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, police said.
The suspect, identified as 36-year-old Manuel Arturo Alvarez of Modesto, was booked into Cois Byrd Detention Center.
The identity of the man who died was not immediately made public.
