HOUSTON – A man’s body was found stabbed, dismembered, and possibly shot inside a hotel room in southwest Houston on Monday, according to the Houston Police Department.
Houston police said they responded to a fatal stabbing after one of the motel’s housekeepers discovered the body around 12:30 p.m. at the Palace Inn, in the 8200 block of Southwest Freeway outbound service road near South Gessner.
The owner of a southwest Houston motel describes a violent scene.
“I went up to the room and as soon as I saw a body, I called 911 and went from there,” said Palace Inn owner Raj Das. “There was a lot of blood.
The body was near the bathroom and Das said it appeared as if his throat had been slashed. Police also said the man had several stab wounds and was possibly shot.
Police said two men, one being the victim, and a woman checked into the hotel. Sometime later on Sunday, the victim and the woman left the hotel, the manager recalled. The victim returned later Sunday, alone, he said. Meanwhile, the man who originally accompanied the victim stayed in the hotel room, Das said.
“Everything was normal from a guest standpoint. They entered and left the room two or three times throughout the day,” Das told KPRC 2.
Later that evening into the early morning hours of Monday, more people came to the room, according to Das.
“Around one o’clock at night they had let two other people enter the room. They had knocked on the door and they had entered the room and those people left after 30 minutes and I think that’s when it happened,” Das recalled of the night.
The Palace Inn has several surveillance cameras on the property.
From those cameras, police were able to determine that one man left the hotel in a blue Hyundai sedan and three other people, two men and the woman, were seen leaving in a dark-colored SUV.
“It is absolutely the single most compelling piece of evidence in this case,” said Crime Stoppers of Houston victim advocate Andy Kahn of the surveillance video. “You have a horrific crime, first of all, you don’t normally see people getting their limbs chopped off or things of that nature.”
Kahn believes the manner in which this crime was committed shows that it was premeditated and personal.
“This is pretty telling that this is personal. This was not some random attack. You knew what you were doing. You knew you had some personal animosity,” said Kahn. “The public is our best eyes and ears out there. Someone has to know something you can’t just commit something like this.”
The man’s identity has not been released.
Crime Stoppers is offering up to a $5,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Houston Police Department Homicide Division at 713- 308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-8477.