Blackfoot woman pleads not guilty to murder charge
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BLACKFOOT – A Blackfoot woman has entered a plea for her role in the alleged stabbing death of a man she lived with.
Melissa Perkes, 35, pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder during a district court arraignment Monday in front of District Judge Darren Simpson.
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Perkes is accused of stabbing 37-year-old Jace Williams to death in an apartment building on Nov. 7.
According to the police report, officers from the Blackfoot Police Department were called to an apartment building on the 100 block of North Broadway Street around 11:45 p.m.
A caller said there had been a stabbing and a man was “yelling that he had been stabbed.”
Once an officer arrived, he “performed life-saving measures until the ambulance arrived and took over.” The ambulance took Williams to Bingham Memorial Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
Officers say in court documents that when they entered the apartment building, they found a “large kitchen knife” with “blood stains on it” halfway up the stairs. Williams was at the top of the staircase in the building.
During a preliminary hearing on Jan. 19, prosecutors showed security footage of the apartment building hallway during the gruesome events.
Williams is seen stumbling out of an apartment with a large kitchen knife in his hand. As he turns his back to the camera, you can see bloody wounds seeping through the clothes on his back.
He hurries down the hallway toward a set of stairs, banging on neighbors’ doors and seemingly yelling until he gets to the end of the hallway, where he sits on the floor and eventually lies down. He was later pronounced dead at Bingham Memorial Hospital.
One minute later, Perkes is seen leaving the apartment “with no shoes on.” Officers say she “appeared to be leaving quickly.”
Police located Perkes in the neighborhood and took her to be interviewed. She refused to speak without a lawyer and officers say she had blood stains on her “right thigh area.”
Perkes was then booked into the Bingham County Jail and bond was set for $1 million.
Officers obtained a search warrant for the apartment where they say there were blood stains on the bed and “cast-off blood stains on the blinds over the window.”
Further court proceedings have not been scheduled.
If convicted, Perkes could face up to life in prison.