A man accused of stabbing a woman in the chest on a METRO light rail was arrested at a Houston mental health clinic, and his defense attorney pointed out his mental health history to a judge on Friday.
Saturday’s stabbing fatally wounded Alexis Jarrell, damaged her heart and left her on life support, prosecutors said. Houston police said she was pronounced dead Monday, though prosecutors told a 228th District Court judge that a murder charge is pending over her organ donation.
Authorities reviewed surveillance footage and identified Christopher Washington, 52, as a passenger who attacked her due to distinctive deformities on his head, according to court records. Authorities believe he boarded the train in the downtown Houston theater district and stabbed Jarrell at some point on the train.
He fled at the MacGregor Park station as the train traveled southeast from Houston, leaving Jarrell on the train to the Palm Center stop. A witness stayed with her and later identified Washington as her attacker to police at the hospital.
Police arrested Washington Tuesday at a Sun Behavioral mental health clinic, wearing the same clothing shown in surveillance footage. He remains jailed in Harris County on one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
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He appeared in court on Friday after a delay in processing. His defense attorney, John Clark Jr., said Washington has a history of mental health problems and asked the judge to allow a competency test as soon as possible.
That mental health history coincided with what Assistant District Attorney Chris Handley described as allegations of violence against strangers and downtown Houston bank workers, many of whom were women. He has stabbed another person on the light rail in the past, the prosecutor said.
Police arrested Washington in August on misdemeanor assault after he struck a woman with his hand, court records show. A Harris County magistrate posted Washington on a personal recognizance bond.
Handley warned in a motion for sufficient bail that he was in prison for stabbing a man, also on the METRO light rail, years earlier and faced accusations of similarly attacking a bank employee.
While out on bail on the misdemeanor charge, he threatened to assault another bank employee, Handley told the judge.
Handley asked that Washington be held on $1 million bail, but Judge Frank Aguilar agreed to increase that amount to $2.5 million, noting his violent criminal history and his failure to appear in court while on bail following previous arrests. Washington has four felony and eight misdemeanor convictions since 1989, court records show.
Washington last worked at a landscaping company, which Handley worried would give him the means to flee the Houston area. Financial records show that Washington listed three children as dependents.
