Man killed after stopping to help stalled driver in southwest Houston, HPD says

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A man is dead after he and another person stopped to offer help to strangers in a stalled car in southwest Houston overnight. It's a situation that police admit is confusing.

Houston police said there were two people in a vehicle that was stalled out on South Main Street at Fondren Road around midnight.

Two strangers in another vehicle stopped to help the drivers, and that's when an altercation allegedly broke out.

The two people in the car that stopped to help started fighting and at some point, one of them pulled out a knife, HPD said. Now, a man in his 30s is dead.

"We don't really know the extent of the injuries. Those are not immediately apparent to us right now. There's some other things that we're still investigating on this," Sgt. Duncan said. "There's no trauma right now immediately apparent. If it is a stab wound, it could be something that we're not seeing that's obvious to us. That's why I'm saying we need to wait for the ME (medical examiner) to give us an official ruling about what happened here tonight."

Although it's unclear what exactly led to the man's death, HPD said they found him in the driver's seat of the vehicle he arrived in.

The individuals in the stalled vehicle who witnessed the altercation are cooperating with investigators, police said.

HPD said someone returned to the scene during the investigation, but it's unclear if they are a suspect in the man's death. The investigation into exactly what happened is ongoing.

Sgt. Duncan acknowledged that the circumstances around the homicide investigation are unusual.

"It's a confusing situation right now. We're just trying to work through the information that we have," he said.

Police were blocking the inbound lanes of South Main Street, forcing traffic onto Fondren Road.