Woman pleads guilty to murdering man who was stabbed to death
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BLACKFOOT – A 35-year-old woman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Monday.
Melissa Perkes changed her plea to guilty and admitted to stabbing 37-year-old Jace Williams to death, according to a news release from Bingham County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Rogers.
Perkes accepted a plea agreement in which she agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder if prosecutors recommended 18 years fixed time in prison, but will be free to argue the indeterminate time. Her attorneys will recommend nothing less than five years fixed and also be free to argue the indeterminate time.
Perkes originally pleaded not guilty when she was first charged and was set to stand trial on May 22, but that has now been vacated.
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Blackfoot police were called to an apartment building on the 100 block of North Broadway Street around 11:45 p.m. on Nov. 7.
The caller said someone might be injured, and when police arrived, they found a man with stab wounds at the top of a staircase in the apartment building.
The news release confirms that Perkes and William were living together and details the events of the night that led to Williams’ body being found.
“On surveillance video from the apartment complex, Jace Williams can be seen exiting the apartment at approximately 11:43 p.m. bleeding from the back and holding a large kitchen knife. Jace Williams was knocking on apartment doors of his neighbors yelling for help and stating that he had been stabbed,” the news release says. “Jace Williams walked approximately 30 feet to the edge of the stairway, dropped the knife over the stairwell, and sat down, still yelling for help and kicking the nearest apartment door.”
Security footage shows that as Williams sat yelling, Perkes walked out of the apartment barefoot, shrugged her shoulders, and left through the back exit.
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Photos shown in court during Perkes’ preliminary hearing depicted blood stains on the walls of the bedroom inside the apartment, as well as the transfer of bloodstains on bed sheets, recliners in the living room, and “lots of blood” in the hallway of the apartment, according to investigators.
Perkes is scheduled to be sentenced on June 5 at 3 p.m.