A 23-year-old North Little Rock man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for fatally stabbing a man who was going to call the police on him.
Johnny Tacu pleaded guilty on Monday to first-degree murder and unrelated charges of attempted escape and theft by receiving in exchange for the 30-year term. He has to serve 21 years before he can apply for parole.
Tacu was arrested shortly after Geovanne Navarro Carbajal, 22, was stabbed in the chest in June 2015 at the McCuin Mobile Home Park on Stanton Road in Little Rock. Carbajal died a few hours later.
Tacu told arresting officers, "I did it to protect my wife," according to an arrest report.
Carbajal was stabbed in front of the home of Tacu's ex-girlfriend, Lisa Ann Cruz, 36, police reports show.
She told officers that she and Tacu had argued earlier in the day in North Little Rock and that she'd left him there.
But Tacu showed up later at her trailer and she saw him rummaging through her car, she said.
Cruz did not go outside, but a friend of the pair, Irene Martinez, 50, went out and told Tacu to leave.
Tacu instead turned toward Carbajal, court filings show.
Carbajal, who had stepped outside with Martinez, was walking across the street to ask another neighbor, Vanessa Quintana, 27, to call police when Tacu stabbed him.
Martinez told detectives that Tacu approached Carbajal as if he was going to shake his hand, then Carbajal turned around and she could see blood on his shirt.
Another witness said it looked like Tacu had taken something out of his pocket and handed it to Carbajal, court filings show.
Neighbor Brittany Scates, 30, reported she saw Tacu circling Carbajal, then saying something to the victim and stabbing him.
Carbajal turn back to Cruz's home and collapsed in front of the trailer, reports show.
The theft-by-receiving count stems from Tacu's Oct. 1, 2014, arrest in the 1800 block of East Kiehl Avenue in Sherwood while driving a stolen Dodge Durango.
Tacu was charged with attempted escape after deputies in September 2015 discovered scrape marks around his jail cell window and found three 1-inch-wide metal hinges and what appeared to be a makeshift handcuff key under his bunk.
Court records show Tacu continued to be disruptive both in jail and in court. Bailiffs used a stun gun on Tacu at a March 8 court appearance after he became combative and resisted deputies' efforts to restrain him, court records show.
In March 2016, Tacu tampered with the fire sprinkler in his cell in the middle of the night, flooding the unit.
Deputies had to lock down the facility for about 90 minutes for cleanup and repair, forcing meal delivery to inmates to be delayed, an arrest report said.
Charges related to the damage were dropped as a condition of his guilty plea this week.
Metro on 05/20/2017
