A stranger helps a man move furniture in his house. He then finds a dead body.
A Texas man has been arrested after a stranger he invited into his home to help move furniture stumbled across a human body.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office shared information about the arrest in statements posted to social media on Sunday, May 18. The statement, written by Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, called the May 16 incident "strange," saying police were first notified of a problem around 11 a.m. when multiple calls came in about a suspicious person and a vehicle striking another before fleeing the scene.
When police made contact with the alleged hit-and-run driver, he told them he had been offered money to assist 36-year-old Steven Eberly, a stranger, with moving furniture from his home. While at the Eberly's house, he spotted a body wrapped in a blanket inside one of the boxes he was asked to move, Lieutenant Abraham Alanis said in a press conference on Friday.
Discovery of dead body led to wild scene, crash
This led the unidentified man to jump into a truck on the scene to leave, at which point Eberly jumped into the truck bed. He began breaking windows to try to stop the witness from leaving, according to local reports. This was when the crash happened, said police, and Eberly then fled on foot and was soon after spotted walking and bleeding from the head by a 911 caller.
He was later found and taken to the hospital by police before being arrested on a charge of murder.
The victim was identified by local news reports as contractor Luis Silva Mendez, who police said had been working at the home. The cause of death is currently under investigation pending autopsy results. No possible motive was shared by police as of Monday, May 19.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office told Paste BN it did not have further information to provide as of Monday, May 19.