Harris County Sheriff's Office deputies followed a trail of blood into a Highlands Cross Drive apartment Tuesday night and found two dead dogs with apparent gunshot wounds, a butcher knife, and the makings of a case that would soon connect to a stabbed woman already being treated at a nearby hospital. By the time detectives pieced the scene together, they had identified her former boyfriend as the alleged attacker and taken him into custody.
According to Ed Gonzalez
, the Harris County Sheriff, deputies responded to a disturbance in the 300 block of Highlands Cross Drive on Tuesday night and discovered a significant amount of blood leading into an apartment. Inside, they found the two deceased dogs along with the knife. Around the same time, a woman arrived at a hospital nearby with multiple stab wounds, and detectives connected her injuries to what deputies had just discovered at the apartment.
Detectives identified the woman's former boyfriend, Johan Caballero, as the alleged attacker and detained him at the hospital. He was subsequently arrested and booked into the Harris County Jail, facing charges of aggravated assault–family violence, violation of a protective order, and animal cruelty, per the sheriff's advisory. Gonzalez listed Caballero's date of birth as December 30, 2007. The Harris County Sheriff's Office Domestic Violence and Animal Cruelty units are working jointly on the investigation, the sheriff said. Caballero is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
What the Charges Could Mean
Under Texas Penal Code § 22.02, aggravated assault involves causing serious bodily injury or using or exhibiting a deadly weapon. Separately, Texas Penal Code § 42.092 classifies intentionally or knowingly killing or inflicting serious bodily injury on an animal in a cruel manner as a third-degree felony, punishable by two to ten years in prison and fines up to $10,000.
The protective-order violation is a separate charge from the assault offense. Research cited by the Texas Council on Family Violence indicates that domestic violence offenders repeat abusive behavior against the same victim in approximately 70% of cases, even after official warnings or protective orders are in place, according to Understanding Houston.
Why Dead Pets and Domestic Violence Often Overlap
Gonzalez's advisory noted that violence against pets can be used to intimidate, threaten, or control victims.
A County Still Grappling With a Deadly Pattern
The Highlands Cross Drive case lands amid a year in which Harris County has already logged significant domestic violence bloodshed. The Harris County Sheriff's Office has responded to at least 23 homicides potentially connected to domestic violence in 2026, according to the Houston Chronicle. That figure comes even as the county has shown measurable progress elsewhere: Texas Council on Family Violence data reported by the same outlet showed domestic violence-linked homicides in Harris County fell from 47 in 2024 to 20 in 2025, the largest single-county drop in the state.
On Oct. 2, Harris County Precinct 4 and Sheriff Gonzalez announced a $2.75 million pilot adding 21 staff to two sheriff's office teams. On Oct. 14, a multi-agency operation led by the sheriff's office called Break the Cycle resulted in 117 total arrests, including 79 involving domestic-violence offenses, according to reports by Click2Houston and CW39.
Anyone experiencing domestic violence is urged to contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or to call 911 in an emergency.
