HOUSTON – Charges have been filed against a 19-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing his roommate after a disagreement over a puppy, according to court documents.
Derrion Mitchell has been charged with murder. His bond was set at $1 million during a preliminary court appearance Tuesday night.
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Mitchell was one of three housemates living at a home in the 12200 block of Flushing Meadows Drive when things took a deadly turn on New Year’s Eve.
According to investigators, on December 31, patrol officers were dispatched to the home around 9:34 p.m. after receiving reports of a “cutting.”
Woman found stabbed to death in her backyard in SE Houston, police say
Upon arrival, officers discovered Adrienne Russell lying in the backyard and suffering from multiple stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators spoke to one of Russell’s roommates who said, on that night, he left the home to go on a bike ride. He said he was gone for only 30 minutes and, when he returned, he could not locate Russell and began to call her name.
The roommate said, that is when he went to the backyard and found her lying on the ground. The roommate immediately called 911 and attempted CPR on Russell, but she did not survive.
The roommate told investigators that Mitchell had been living in the home for the past three weeks. He shared that Russell and Mitchell had a disagreement about a “little brown puppy” Mitchell had gotten around Christmas.
The roommate said Mitchell kept the dog locked up in his room, which caused it to whine a lot. Russell, an animal lover, spoke to Mitchell about the situation, which allegedly caused the man to become upset.
The roommate said that he did not know the whereabouts of Mitchell or the dog.
Investigators began to ask neighbors if they saw or heard anything.
One set of neighbors reported hearing yelling and screaming coming from the backyard of the home but said they did not think there was any danger due to the fact that noise was constant at the residence, documents state.
The neighbors said, however, it sounded like Russell was in the backyard with two men. They reported hearing what appeared to sound like one of the men saying something like “that is enough.”
Investigators then began check surveillance video from surrounding homes.
Footage showed the following timeline:
9:13 p.m. - An individual runs out the front door of the resident, followed by another individual. Both people go through a side gate and into the backyard. Another individual exits the front door and then re-enters the residence.
9:18 p.m. - An individual exits through the front door and walks to the northwest corner of the house, and then quickly walks and jogs northwest down Flushing Meadows Drive towards Astoria Blvd.
9:22 p.m. - An individual is standing in the front yard of the residence on the telephone. (This was confirmed to be the roommate calling 911 to report the stabbing.) HPD and HFD arrive.
The footage did not match up with the roommate’s story, and he admitted to detectives that he did not tell the entire truth, according to documents.
He then began to lay out what really happened that night.
According to documents, the roommate said that he was playing Skyrim when he heard Russell yelling in the living room. When he went to see what was going on, he saw Mitchell striking Russell, so he intervened and pulled the man off the woman.
Mitchell allegedly broke free from the roommate’s grasp and ran into the kitchen, grabbing a knife. Russell had already taken off, running into the backyard. Mitchell began to go after her.
The roommate said he tried to stop Mitchell from going outside, telling him “You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to kill somebody,” to which he said Mitchell replied, “I do this every day,” documents state.
The roommate said Mitchell caught Russell in the backyard, got on top of her and began to plunge the knife into her body.
The roommate said he pulled Mitchell off the woman again, and that is when Mitchell allegedly told him that if he “snitched,” he would do the same thing to him.
Mithcell then went back into the house, grabbed his dog and walked out, still carrying the murder weapon.
Texas Department of Public Safety records show that Mitchell was born in Louisiana and has prior arrests in Alvin for failure to present identification and giving false information.