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Inset: Jacob Daniel Vega (McLennan County Sheriff”s Office). Background: The street where Vega allegedly attacked his pregnant wife in Waco, Tex. (Google Maps).
In a disturbing incident in Texas, a man has been taken into custody for allegedly choking his pregnant wife while their child looked on, according to reports from local authorities.
The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Jacob Daniel Vega, faces charges of aggravated assault linked to domestic violence, as confirmed by the Waco Police Department.
This troubling event unfolded on a Monday at a home situated on Misty Drive in Waco, a city approximately 100 miles from Austin to the northwest.
Mid-morning, a distressed woman dialed 911, expressing her desperation with the words, “I can’t take this anymore,” before detailing that she had been involved in a confrontation, as per an arrest affidavit obtained by KWTX, a local CBS and Telemundo station.
Upon reaching the scene, law enforcement officers were met by Vega, who approached a patrol vehicle and admitted to having a dispute with his wife, as per police accounts.
The defendant went on to tell the responding officers the couple had been arguing because he was inside the bedroom with the door locked and that his wife was repeatedly banging on the door, according to the affidavit. The man said he eventually got angry, opened the door, and then took a shoe rack from the couple’s bedroom and put it in their children’s bedroom.
After the shoe rack incident, the woman started screaming and Vega “lost it,” the defendant said, according to the charging document.
Vega then told the officers that he and his wife had been putting their hands on one another and he wound up sitting on top of her and ultimately began to strangle her, police said. Then, the defendant allegedly told the officers they should go check on the victim. After that, Vega was handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car.
Officers next spoke with the defendant’s wife, who was sitting on the floor with the couple’s child, who was crawling around near her. The woman complained that her legs were numb and her throat hurt, the affidavit says.
The victim said Vega had strangled her for about two to three minutes, police said. Officers noted the presence of broken blood vessels in both of her eyes and redness on her neck, according to the charging document. The victim also echoed a key detail of the defendant’s story – telling police Vega had strangled her with both of his hands while he was sitting on top of her, law enforcement said.
At the time of the incident, the woman was seven weeks pregnant, police said. The couple has been married for six years and has lived together for the past two years, according to law enforcement.
The woman said the couple’s child was in the bedroom while the attack occurred, according to the affidavit. The strangulation only stopped when she went limp in the defendant’s hands, the victim told police.
The wife was taken to nearby Hillcrest Hospital for evaluation, police said. Vega was arrested and booked in the McLennan County Jail. Records do not currently list the defendant as an inmate.