A mother and her teenage daughter have been charged following a violent altercation at an Aldine apartment complex.
KPRC 2 has learned that the 13-year-old girl has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and her mother, 43-year-old Estela Martinez, was charged with tampering with evidence.
Recommended Videos
The incident took place at 4826 Aldine Mail Route Road in Harris County, at approximately 10:17 a.m. on March 2.
The dispute began as a verbal argument between an upstairs neighbor and a downstairs neighbor but quickly escalated and turned violent. The neighbor allegedly pushed the girl down, and she responded by going back to her unit and getting a knife. She reportedly stabbed her 19-year-old neighbor in the back three times.
A victim’s father witnessed the stabbing and called for help, and the man was transported to a nearby hospital by ambulance. He is currently in stable condition. Another downstairs neighbor, an adult female, was also assaulted and subsequently transported to a hospital by ambulance. Her injuries are not life-threatening.
After the stabbing, Martinez reportedly recovered the knife and hid it in a bottle of laundry detergent. After it was found, she told authorities she did it to keep her daughter from getting in trouble.
Martinez has also been in trouble before. In 2020, she pled guilty to an assault charge and was given deferred adjudication and community service. She also has previous arrests for aggravated robbery and drug possession.
This is not the only recent crime in Aldine. Last Friday, a shooting occurred just a few miles away, resulting in one person being hospitalized. Additionally, a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed near an Aldine McDonald’s last Thursday.
READ MORE: 17-year-old shot, killed after brawl in McDonald’s parking lot near Aldine HS
In an interview with KPRC 2′s Jaewon Jung, Kayla Hopkins, a resident of Aldine, expressed concern about the increasing violence in the neighborhood.
“I feel like it’s not the safest environment, even at certain times of the day,” she said. “This is usually the time when kids come out, and families take their kids out just to have a little time with them outside.”
The teen was booked into Harris County Juvenile Probation Center. Martinez has been booked into Harris County Jail on a $25,000 bond.
