By Khalida Sarwari
Two brothers were arrested over the weekend for allegedly stabbing the 12-year-old son of one man’s girlfriend and leaving the boy out in an agricultural field in unincorporated Monterey County, a sheriff’s spokesman said.
Severino Perez, 29, had had a falling out with his live-in girlfriend, sheriff’s Cmdr. Mike Richards said.
Apparently in an attempt to get even with her, Perez and his 25-year-old brother, Domingo Perez, took the woman’s son on Saturday to a remote area of Monterey County, where they both allegedly stabbed the boy with a knife between 20 and 30 times in his upper body, Richards said.
He said the men took off and left the boy on Chualar Canyon Road.
At about 10:20 p.m., California Highway Patrol officers found Domingo Perez walking along U.S. Highway 101. At about the same time, Severino Perez called Salinas police and reported that his stepson had been kidnapped from his home in Salinas.
The brothers had crashed into a pole at Old Stage Road and Chualar Canyon Road, about one-quarter of a mile from the field where they allegedly left the boy, Richards said.
Officers found the boy on Chualar Canyon Road and determined the kidnapping claim “was a bogus report,” Richards said. He had been lying there for six to seven hours before he was found.
The boy was airlifted to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, where he remained in critical condition today.
The Perez brothers were booked into Monterey County jail on attempted murder charges. Domingo Perez also had outstanding warrants.
Both men are Salinas residents.
Richards did not know how long Perez and his girlfriend had been dating or why they had fought, but he said she was not harmed.