Suspect booked in fatal stabbing

A 26-year-old Carencro man was arrested Tuesday night in the Sunday morning stabbing death of a 24-year-old Eunice man, Lafayette police said Wednesday.

Members of the U.S. Marshal’s Violent Offenders Task Force in Beaumont, Texas, arrested Kyle James Toups without incident at 10 p.m. Tuesday in Newton County, Texas, Lafayette police spokesman Cpl. Paul Mouton said.

Toups is accused of stabbing Michael Luke Darby, of Eunice, during a disturbance early Sunday morning in downtown Lafayette, Mouton said.

The two men did not know each other, Mouton said.

Darby’s body was found at noon Monday behind some shrubs next to a lawyer’s office in the 300 block of Polk Street, police have said.

Police issued an arrest warrant for second-degree murder for Toups on Tuesday, Mouton said in a news release Wednesday.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Corey Britt said the Joint East Texas Violent Offenders Task Force arrested Toups in a rural area in Newton County based on information provided by the Western District of Louisiana’s Violent Offender Task Force.

The task force found Toups in a travel trailer on an oil well site on the Texas side of the Sabine River, Britt said. Toups worked at the location and was there with other employees, Britt said.

“The guys got him when he was asleep,” Britt said.

Toups is being held in the Newton County Jail until he can be extradited back to Louisiana, Mouton said, adding that he’s not sure when Toups will be returned to Lafayette.

The case remains under investigation.