New Year’s Eve celebration on North Side ends with fight, fatal stabbing
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A small New Year’s Eve gathering in Pittsburgh ended in tragedy late Sunday when a North Side man fatally stabbed his roommate during a fight that escalated after several hours of drinking, authorities said.
The victim, Luis Soto, 35, was identified Wednesday by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Martin Lopez Hernandez, 33, of East Allegheny was charged Monday with homicide and is being held without bond in the Allegheny County Jail.
On the afternoon of Dec. 31, Hernandez started drinking alcohol with about five friends in the basement of their home at 842 Suismon St., according to a criminal complaint in the case.
Soto and his brother, Andreas, who lived with Hernandez in the East Allegheny home, started arguing with each other around 7 p.m., the complaint said. The fight got physical, and Hernandez tried to intervene. Luis Soto then punched him in the nose.
Hernandez, speaking to Pittsburgh police through a Spanish translator, said he ran out of the house with two other men when the fight escalated, the complaint said. The other men were identified as “Gallo” and “Faustino.”
Hernandez told police that when he returned 10 minutes later, Luis Soto was bleeding.
Andreas Soto, though, provided a conflicting story about his brother’s death, the complaint said.
After Luis Soto punched Hernandez in the nose, Andreas Soto said Hernandez “poked” and beat his brother, the complaint said.
Andreas Soto saw Hernandez break a bottle and thought he had stabbed his brother with it, according to the complaint.
After detectives confronted Hernandez with the discrepancies between the two stories, Hernandez admitted that he used a folding, 4- to 6-inch “sheet-rock blade” to “defend himself from Luis,” police said.
Luis Soto began to punch Hernandez, he told police. Hernandez said he “jabbed” at Luis with the knife and slashed him across the abdomen, the complaint said. He then dropped the knife and ran out of the house.
When Pittsburgh police responded to the Suismon Street home at about 9 p.m., they found Luis Soto, lying face upward in the basement and suffering from “multiple puncture and slash wounds,” the complaint said.
Blood was pooling on the floor and spattered near the body. Some items in the basement “were turned over” and the room “had indications of a physical confrontation,” the complaint said.
Pittsburgh police continue to investigate.