A Cathedral City man’s criminal complaint has been amended to include a murder charge after the death of his alleged stabbing victim, a designer on the television show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
Richard Joseph Gonzales, 34, previously pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and denied sentence-enhancing allegations of using a weapon during a felony and great bodily injury/domestic violence during a Sept. 12 arraignment at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, according to inmate records.
The victim, identified as 58-year-old Eduardo Xol, died at 12:19 p.m. Friday, according to the Riverside County coroner’s office. As a result, prosecutors sought to upgrade the charge to murder.
The defendant’s amended complaint was filed Monday. Gonzales was arraigned on the amended charge later that day and pleaded not guilty to a felony count of murder, according to John Hall of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
He is due back in court for a felony settlement conference on Dec. 18, according to case records.
Police received a call at around 5:41 a.m. on Sept. 10 from a man in the 400 block of E. Arenas Road in Palm Springs, according to a statement from the Palm Springs Police Department.
Officers arrived at the location and found Xol with what appeared to be “significant injuries consistent with an assault,” police said. The man said he had been stabbed but didn’t initially identify the suspect, according to police.
Xol was taken to a hospital and was listed in serious but stable condition. He died at Desert Regional Medical Center 10 days later, according to the coroner’s report.
Hours later, officers received a call from a man in the 100 block of N. Sunrise Way, who said he had been an assault victim the night before Xol’s fatal injury. Police identified him as Gonzales.
Officers later determined Gonzales was a suspect in the earlier stabbing case and arrested him at about 1:40 p.m. on North Indian Canyon Drive, according to the department and inmate records.
He was booked into the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio.
