Authorities allegedly find weapon used in stabbing murder

Two witnesses, a knife and a bloody jacket appear to be at the center of the investigation that led to the arrest of Ariel Escobar-Soler on charges of second-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.

One witness told police he was in a car with the victim, Casimiro Hernandez-Ruiz, 40, and two other men around the time the homicide occurred. When the witness and Marcos Lopez (facing charges of tampering with physical evidence) got out of the car and went over to the driver’s side of the car, the victim “took off his shirt and he saw a wound to the upper chest area of the victim,” according to a probable-cause statement filed in the case, signed by an officer whose name was redacted. “He said he believed Escobar-Soler stabbed him as he was the only person by the victim,” the affidavit stated.

The witness, according to the affidavit, said he began to cry, exclaiming, “What did you do?” in Spanish, according to the document, which explained that a Spanish-speaking officer interpreted the interview.

Lopez, the second witness, told police “some type of altercation broke out between Escobar-Soler and the victim. Lopez said, “He pulled Escobar-Soler off of the victim and then noticed Escobar-Soler was holding a knife with blood on it,” according to the probable-cause statement. Lopez said the first witness ran off first, and then he and Escobar-Soler left together. The document states Lopez took the knife away from Escobar-Soler, and later cleaned the knife with water and placed it in a box at his apartment.

Investigators executed a search warrant and found the knife, as well as the jacket Escobar-Soler allegedly wore during the homicide. The affidavit explained that the jacket was stained with what preliminary tests indicated was blood.