HOUSTON – (Update: The livestream is over. Please check back for more livestreams on KSAT.com).
A Texas man last seen with a tiger found wandering a Houston neighborhood will appear in court Friday for an unrelated charge of murder.
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Victor Hugo Cuevas will appear in Fort Bend County Court at 10 a.m. Friday, and it will be livestreamed in this article. Delays are possible, if there is not a livestream available, check back at a later time.
When he was arrested Monday night in connection with the tiger incident, Cuevas was already out on bond after being charged with murder in a 2017 fatal shooting of a man outside a restaurant in Fort Bend County. Cuevas has maintained the shooting was self-defense, his attorney has said. Cuevas has previously had his bond in the murder case revoked four times and is set to appear in court on Friday as prosecutors seek to revoke it a fifth time.
The whereabouts of a tiger that was found briefly wandering a Houston neighborhood remain unknown. On Sunday, the tiger came face-to-face with a Waller County deputy as Cuevas told the deputy to not shoot the big cat.
When officers arrived, Cuevas put the animal in a vehicle and drove off, police initially said. He got away after a brief pursuit.
An attorney for Cuevas continued to insist to reporters on Wednesday that his client is not the tiger’s owner and like authorities is worried about the animal’s safety.
“We’re going to do everything we can do to try to find this cat and get this cat to a nice, safe place where it can enjoy a nice comfortable life. That’s really what we want to do,” attorney Michael W. Elliott told reporters during a brief news conference outside the Fort Bend County Jail. Cuevas had been booked into the jail Monday night after being charged with evading arrest by Houston police in neighboring Harris County.
While Elliott has denied Cuevas is the owner or caretaker of the tiger, the attorney has told reporters the animal is a 9-month-old male named India.
Cuevas, 26, who stood next to Elliott, did not speak on Wednesday. Elliott declined to answer questions about who the owner of the tiger could be, saying they would do their own investigation to find the tiger as Houston police had not done a good job.
Houston police spokesman John Cannon said his agency was still searching for the tiger.
“We all love animals, including my client ... The public wants to know, we want to know to. We want to find India and we’re going to work hard to do that,” Elliott said.
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