Houston man arrested in spearing death over money

A west Houston apartment where authorities found a bloodsoaked walkway has led to the arrest of a rent-strapped man who allegedly speared another person to death in order to steal his money, according to court documents.

Patrick Zeno had blood on him Saturday morning when Houston police officers pulled him over, officials said. A security officer near The Villages at Meyerland Apartments had supplied police with a description of the 20-year-old tenant and the vehicle he was driving.

Officers had been dispatched around 3 a.m. to a second-floor apartment on Caversham Drive after a 911 caller found “a substantial amount of blood” in-andaround Zeno’s apartment at the complex. A large streak of blood still could be seen Sunday on the ground floor, and a pool of blood was found next to a staircase on the second floor.

Police were unable at the time to find a body, Houston police investigator Jason Escobar said.

The blood is now believed to have come from a man who Zeno allegedly stabbed with a spear at the apartment. A criminal complaint identified the slain man as Devenaux Hayes. His body was later found in a field in Baytown, according to a prosecutor's request for a high bond.

Zeno is accused of luring Hayes to his apartment to kill him and the “take his money in order to pay rent,” court documents state.

The smeared blood outside the apartment likely stemmed from when Zeno dragged the man’s body downstairs and into a car, according to those documents. Zeno then drove about 34 miles to Baytown to dump Hayes’ body, prosecutors said.

Baytown police spokesman Lt. Steve Dorris said police from Houston found the body in a field near Harbor Street and Oakwood Street, which is adjacent to a set of train tracks and a stretch of industrial plants.

Second-floor residents at the Houston apartment complex were unaware of the man’s death as of Sunday evening — or that their neighbor had been charged with murder.

Tony Ball, 25, was stunned to learn the man who lived two doors down from him was suspected of killing another person.

“I’d been hoping they weren’t blood marks, but they’re downstairs, too,” Ball said.

Zeno is being held at the Harris County Jail on a $150,000 bond and is slated to return to court Monday morning.