A 25-year-old man has been charged with killing his mother by stabbing her, possibly hundreds of times, Montgomery County police said Monday.
Officers were called to The Chateau Apartments in the 9700 block of Mt. Pisgah Road in Silver Spring on June 28 after a co-worker of Esperanza Valle, 50, noticed she had not shown up for work.
Inside the apartment Valle shared with her son, officers found her body and her son, 25-year-old Fidel Washington. He was cleaning his room.
At first, Washington tried to tell police that someone had come into the home and stabbed his mother. But, police say, Washington was taken into custody and later confessed to killing Valle after they got into an argument about him not having a job.
He stabbed her as a way to control her, court papers said.
Those court papers say Valle was stabbed 40 to 50 times, but a source close to the investigation told News4's Chris Gordon that Valle was stabbed hundreds of times.
Monday, Washington was charged with first-degree murder. He is being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Center.
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