1 Killed in Double Stabbing Linked to Domestic Dispute

A man was fatally stabbed and another man was seriously injured Monday when a dispute in a College Park home turned violent, Prince George's County police said.

Just before 4 a.m., police went to a 7-Eleven convenience store in the 8900 block of Rhode Island Avenue to investigate a report of two men on the ground in the parking lot. When officers arrived, they found a 28-year-old and a 19-year-old suffering from stab wounds.

Both were taken to hospitals, and the 28-year-old later died. He was identified last night as Johnny Elmer Alvarez Gomez of Gaithersburg. Although the 19-year-old suffered life-threatening wounds, he was expected to live, police said. He was described as a Riverdale resident.

Police said Roberto Edmundo Cruz, 45, who lives in the 5000 block of Hollywood Road, was charged with second-degree murder. He was arrested at a hospital where he had gone for treatment of minor injuries, police said.

The stabbings occurred inside a house in the 5000 block of Hollywood Road, police said. Gomez and the 19-year-old then drove themselves or hitched a ride less than a mile to the convenience store, where they collapsed in the parking lot, police said.

Neither was a student at the University of Maryland, which is about 1 1/2 miles southwest of the Hollywood Road address.

Officer Evan Baxter, a Prince George's County police spokesman, said the stabbing was "an isolated, domestic-related incident between parties that are known to each other." Police did not give details on what prompted the dispute.

Dan Knode, 65, a neighbor, said he was awakened by a commotion at the house about 3 a.m. He said he heard people arguing in Spanish and then saw two vehicles speed away, one apparently chasing the other.

Knode said the neighborhood, home to a mix of immigrants, college students and longtime homeowners, is generally quiet.

He said that a woman, her father and two children lived where the stabbing occurred but that it was unclear whether the woman had a boyfriend or a husband.