A Starr County man is charged with stabbing his girlfriend with a big folding knife. It happened inside her SUV, according to a sworn affidavit from the Starr County Sheriff's Office.

Arcadio Salinas faces a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The complaint lists it as a second-degree felony. That can mean 2 to 20 years in prison.

Sheriff's Investigator Rafael Aguirre signed the complaint under oath. It was filed on Sept. 8 in the Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace court. A justice of the peace signed a warrant for his arrest the same day.

Salinas was arrested on Sept. 11 at the Starr County Sheriff's Office. That is what a deputy wrote on the return page of the warrant.

The 911 call came on Friday, Sept. 4. Deputies were sent to a house for a report of a stabbing. When they got there, they found no victim. They found no crime scene, either.

Then dispatch filled them in. The woman had called 911 herself. She said Arcadio Salinas stabbed her. She was in her own car, on her way to a hospital in Mission.

Deputies and La Grulla police looked for Salinas at several addresses. They did not find him that day, the affidavit says.

Later that same day, Aguirre talked to the woman at a hospital in McAllen. She told him they had been dating since October of last year. She said he lives with her.

Here is her story, as the affidavit tells it.

She was driving her Toyota SUV. Salinas sat in the front passenger seat. He wanted her to take him to his ex-wife's house.

The two had been fighting. She said the fight was about him cheating on her. She also said he had assaulted her the Saturday before, at South Padre Island. The affidavit does not say if any charge came from that.

When they got to the house, he wanted her to park in the driveway. She said no.

That is when he pulled out a large folding knife, she told the investigator. It had a stainless steel blade and a tan handle. She said he stabbed her one time in the lower right side of her belly.

She told him to get out of her SUV. He got out and walked away on foot, the affidavit says.

The complaint says the stab wound was a "serious bodily injury." That is a legal term. In Texas, it means an injury that puts a person at real risk of death, or causes lasting harm. The papers do not say how she is doing now.

The complaint also says the two had a "dating relationship." It points to the part of the Texas Family Code that defines that term. Aguirre wrote that his case is based on three things. One is what the woman told him. Another is what Deputy Norma Gutierrez told him. The last is his own work on the case.

There is a lot the court papers do not say. They do not list a bond. They do not give Salinas' age. They do not say if he has a lawyer.

So far, this is a complaint, not a trial. In Texas, a grand jury usually has to indict a person before a felony case can go to trial. To indict means to formally charge.

The case number at the Sheriff's Office is 2026-01980.

If you or someone you know is being hurt at home, help is a phone call away. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.

Everyone is presumed innocent until proved otherwise.