WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — A Wichita Falls woman was arrested for stabbing her roommate and has also been charged with animal cruelty after police found a dog at the scene suffering from apparent severe neglect and starvation.

Kristi Perez is jailed on a $50,000 bond for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and a $5,000 bond for animal cruelty.

On Tuesday evening, September 26, 2023, police said the stabbing victim called to report he had been stabbed in the head in a rear apartment in the 700 block of Baylor.

Officers found him sitting on the front porch of the house with blood running from wounds to his head and left hand.

He told them his roommate, Perez, with whom he had lived about a month but was not romantically involved, began stabbing him while he was asleep, and he tried to block the strikes with his left hand.

An officer found a steak knife on the kitchen counter with blood on it, and Perez was detained for questioning.

The officer also looked over a makeshift barrier in a corner of the apartment and found a white dog lying on a pillow. He said the dog’s ribs were sticking out and he could also see its pelvis pressing against the skin because of malnourishment, and Band-aids were stuck on its hips.

He said the dog was struggling to breathe, and he asked Perez what happened to it.

She told him she was waiting on her paycheck to take him to a veterinarian.

The officer then reminded Perez that he had seen the same dog in her previous apartment two months ago and she had told him then she was taking the dog to a vet, and now the dog was in much worse shape. He said she apologized for not taking it in but claimed the dog would be fine and just needed to get to a vet.

The officer called animal control to the scene and said they immediately classified it to be a case of cruelty from starvation and observed the dog’s eyes were sunken into its head from malnourishment.

They removed the dog from the apartment on a stretcher.

No information was provided in affidavits on whether the dog is likely to recover.

Perez has ten prior arrests, including several for assault and evading or resisting arrest.

She is currently on five years probation for assault of an elderly person last September.

Police and a witness said she got into an argument with her elderly father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s when he asked her to leave, and she struck him multiple times in the head with a frying pan.