Phoenix police identify Jose Deleon as victim stabbed to death by his girlfriend

Police identified the man they say was stabbed to death by his girlfriend during an argument at a west Phoenix home on Monday.

Phoenix police spokeswoman Sergeant Mayra Reeson confirmed Thursday that the man officers found dead with multiple stab wounds in the driveway of a West Valley home on Monday was 50-year-old Jose Virgil Deleon. Reeson said in a news release that Deleon’s girlfriend, 52-year-old Esperanza Bautista Valencia, was arrested Monday in connection with Deleon’s death.

Officers arrived at the home near 52nd and Windsor Avenue around 12:10 p.m. Monday after Bautista Valencia called 911 and told them she had stabbed her boyfriend, Reeson wrote.

When officers arrived at the house and found Deleon’s body, they arrested Bautista Valencia “without incident,” Reeson said.

Bautista Valencia told police that she had a verbal argument with her boyfriend the night before his death and that she then drank beer and whiskey at about 3 a.m. the morning of the incident, court documents show.

Court documents say Bautista Valencia told police she and Deleon began arguing again that afternoon when she thought her boyfriend was leaving her. Deleon then pushed her to the ground, she said in court documents.

The documents say Bautista Valencia then got a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill Deleon for touching her. In court documents, she admitted to using the knife to cut her boyfriend’s right arm and then stabbing him in the chest.

When she turned Deleon over and saw his chest bleeding, Bautista Valencia called 911, according to records. According to court documents, Bautista Valencia also said she panicked and tried to wash the blood off the knife in the kitchen sink before placing it on the floor next to her boyfriend’s body.

The couple had lived together for two years and had a history of domestic violence involving arguments and alcohol abuse, court documents show.

In court documents, Bautista Valencia said she had threatened Deleon with knives before and frequently became angry at “everyone,” including her boyfriend. She had also been arrested in the past in domestic violence incidents in Chicago and California, one of which also involved a knife.

In addition to the first-degree murder charges, Bautista Valencia was booked into a Maricopa County jail on charges of aggravated assault and evidence tampering. Her bail was set at $1 million and she was scheduled to appear in court again on May 28.

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