Murder suspect branded 'Houston's Tiger King' after he fled cops with a Bengal tiger claims the big cat isn't his but he knows where it is as it's revealed he 'gunned down a dental student outside a mall in 2017'

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Victor Hugo Cuevas, age 26, is on bail for the 2017 murder of a man outside a sushi restaurant in Richmond, west of Houston

The murder suspect accused of fleeing police with a pet tiger, which was filmed terrorizing a Houston neighborhood, claims he knows where the tiger is and who its real owner is.

Victor Hugo Cuevas, 26, was on bail awaiting trial for first-degree murder when he allegedly ditched police in a high-speed pursuit after he bundled his tiger into a white Jeep Cherokee and fled the scene on Sunday evening. 

He was taken into custody on Monday night at his parent's home and was charged with felony evading arrest for fleeing from patrol officers.

The Bengal tiger, revealed to be a nine-month-old named India on Tuesday, is still on the loose after it was filmed wandering through Ivy Wall Drive in West Houston on Saturday night.

Cuevas has been charged with the July 2017 murder of University of Houston dental student Oseikhuemen Omobhude, 20, outside the Bella Terra shopping mall in Richmond, west of Houston, ABC7.com reported.  

According to eyewitness accounts, Omobhude was approached by two men on motorcycles and shot several times in his car. He was able to drive a few hundred yards to seek help at a nearby Buffalo Wings Restaurant, but later died at Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital. 

The motive for the shooting is still unclear.

Cuevas was arrested two weeks after the murder at an airport while returning from Mexico, KHOU11 reported. 

On Tuesday, Cuevas, branded 'Houston's Tiger King', appeared in court in Harris County where a magistrate set a $50,000 bond on a felony evading arrest charge.  

After the appearance Cuevas' lawyer Michael Elliott said his client knew who the owner was and where the tiger could be found, and had been assisting investigators.

He again has denied the tiger belonged to his client, and revealed the tiger's name was India and it was just nine-months-old. 

Carole Baskin, who shot to fame after the Netflix documentary Tiger King, told Fox26 Houston it appeared someone with a criminal history had decided it would 'be cool to have a tiger and take it around' in his car.

The tiger, identified by a neighbor as a Bengal, approaches a man with a weapon trained upon it in menacing fashion

A tiger was on the loose in the quiet residential neighborhood of Ivy Wall Drive in West Houston on Sunday night

Cuevas is on bail for the 2017 murder of Oseikhuemen 'Ose' Omobhude, 20, who was shot in the parking lot of a popular sushi restaurant

A close friend of Omubhude's, Shontavia Young, told DailyMail.com she was shocked when she heard the suspect in his murder was out on bail.

'This definitely shook me up this morning,' she said. 

'If they were in the wrong, and now you’re out doing this yes you need to be put away.'

Young said Omubhude had gone to meet two men on the night that he was shot dead.

'From my understanding he was meeting with some guys and there was some words exchanged and he did end up being shot, a couple of times through his body.' 

'He was able to make it to the Buffalo Wild Wings but of course he didn’t make it.'

She said Omubhude had touched many lives during his 20 years.

'Any room that Ose walked in, he brightened it, he always made sure everybody was good.

'So many people came to his memorial service, it was incredible to see how many lives he touched.'

He was charged with first-degree murder three years later in 2020 and is currently out on a $125,000 bond. A second man was also arrested in connection with the shooting. 

Young was unclear why it had taken three years for police to charge Cuevas with her best friend's killing. 

Omobhude, who was studying to become a dentist, was a member of the University of Houston's Zeta Zeta Chapter of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

The fraternity held a memorial and fundraising drive for his family after he died.

Cuevas, who is in custody in Harris County on charges arising from this week's run-in with the cops, is due to appear in court in Fort Bend on Friday for a bail revocation hearing on the murder charges.

Cuevas was arrested after sheriff's received an anonymous tip and held on a $750,000 bond in the Fort Bend County Jail.  

The quiet suburban West Houston neighborhood were alerted to the presence of the tiger roaming through the streets when Jose Ramos posted a warning on a neighborhood blog around 8pm. 

Waller County Sheriff's deputy Wes Manion, who lives nearby, saw the post and despite initially thinking it was a fake went to the scene to investigate. 

'You always have to verify,' he told KHOU radio station.

Upon arriving on Ivy Wall Drive, Manion discovered the big cat on the loose in the street, and tried to shepherd it away from residents.

Video footage shows him drawing his weapon and aiming it at the tiger as it appears to be stalking him.   

'Last thing I wanted to do was shoot the tiger,' Manion told KHOU. 'It didn't seem super aggressive.' 

The footage shows Cuevas arrive and start dragging the tiger back inside a house, which he had been renting for six months.

Manion asked angrily why the tiger was on the loose, and Cuevas is seen on video telling him: 'We're with the zoo'.

Manion orders Cuevas to get the tiger back into his house and Cuevas grabs the tiger's collar and walks it into a house.

He was taken into custody on Monday night and was charged with felony evading arrest for fleeing from patrol officers

Law enforcement officials investigate the home where the tiger was being kept before it went on the loose

Waller County Sheriff's Office Deputy Wes Manion approximates the size of the tiger, Monday, May 10, 2021, in Houston

Cuevas then puts the tiger into a white Jeep Cherokee and drives away with it. 

Police pursued the vehicle but soon lost sight of it. 

Houston PD major crimes division commander Ronald Borza said it appeared the animal had been well cared for, and was kept inside a house Cuevas had been renting sine late last year.   

Borza, a commander with the Houston Police Department's major offenders division, told a news conference.

A search of the home found an animal enclosure in the backyard, but there were signs the animal had been kept inside the home most of the time. 

Borza said the animal appeared to have been well cared for. 

But the police commander added Houston's citywide ban on wild animals was in place for a good reason.

'You never know when that animal is going to turn on you,' he said. 

Elliott, Cuevas' lawyer, said he and his client had made contact with police and arranged for him to surrender at the Harris County Jail at 8:15pm Monday night.

But police swooped on Cuevas' parents address in Bella Veneza Drive 15 minutes before the deadline.

Cuevas was taken to the Fort Bend County Jail for a bond violation relating to his 2017 murder charge and for evading arrest.

Elliott accused police of a double-cross, insisted his client hadn't done anything wrong, and said they were was assisting police in finding the tiger's owner. 

'Because my client was the one who caught this tiger, who went out and got it, brought it back to safety, everyone is just assuming that he's the owner of the tiger and that it's his tiger,' Elliott said. 

Speaking after Cuevas' court appearance on Tuesday afternoon, Elliott again denied his client was the owner of the tiger.

'We need to find India,' said Elliott. 'We know from the video that everyone's seen.. he happens to be the one that... brought the tiger back into safety. That doesn't mean that he's the owner.' 

While the state of Texas has very relaxed laws on ownership of dangerous animals, is illegal to keep a tiger in the city of Houston.   

Footage showed the big cat stalking around the West Houston home 

Victor Hugo Cuevas was seen grabbing hold of his tiger by the collar 

Cuevas then led the animal back into his house before he put the animal into his Jeep and drove off 

Carole Baskin, who runs a big cat sanctuary featured in the hit Netflix documentary Tiger King, praised the actions of the off-duty deputy in an interview with Fox26.

'He showed an amazing amount of restraint. So many other people would have shot it like that,' she told the station.

She said it was an all too familiar story of private big cat owners not caring properly for the animals.

'It just keeps happening,' she said. 

'Clearly, this cat was wondering around because they left it unattended. They probably thought the backyard fence was high enough, and didn't realize the cat could hop it like that.'

Her husband Howard added the tiger could have easily killed a small child walking past. 

The House of Representatives passed the 'Tiger King' bill in December, which would ban the private ownership in the US of tigers, lions and cougars. 

Officers were called to the address around 8pm on Sunday night after receiving reports of a tiger roaming the neighborhood. 

Video footage, posted online on Sunday evening, shows several pickup trucks and other vehicles appear to be trying to block the tiger in to prevent it from escaping.

'There is a freaking Bengal tiger roaming in this yard and this dude needs to be careful,' a woman is heard saying on the video. 

'What the heck? Why is there a tiger?'  

An eyewitness capturing the footage, Maria Torres, can be heard shouting: 'It has a collar. It is somebody's pet.' 

The person capturing the footage, which has been viewed nearly 750,000 times by Monday morning, makes a run for it when the tiger gets too close. 

Eventually, a person who appears to be the tiger's owner emerges from a house and can be heard saying: 'I'll get him, I'll get him.' 

The man grabs the animal by the collar and takes it back into a house. 

'Get the f** back inside. F**k you and your f**king tiger,' another man can be heard yelling at him.

The armed man gestures to residents to stay back as the tiger gets within a few feet of his position

The tiger is reportedly not the only exotic animal which has been spotted at Cuevas' rented property.

Neighbor Jose Ramos later told ABC13 that he had seen a capuchin monkey at the residence before. 

'I figured, OK, this is a small animal. It could be domesticated. But I never thought they would hold a tiger in their house.' 

A person named Rob Wormald posted video of the encounter between the tiger and the deputy on his Twitter account. 

'Apparently there's a tiger loose on my parents' West Houston street?' he writes.

Texas has some of the most lenient pet ownership rules in the country, however it is illegal to own a dangerous animal in the Houston city limits.

The neighborhood where the tiger was filmed is about 18 miles west of downtown Houston and still within its city limits. 

Animal welfare activists estimate there could be between 2,000 and 5,000 privately-owned tigers in the Lone Star State - making it second only to India in tiger population. 

The story lit up social media, with many making comparisons with the Tiger King documentary. 

'Tiger King 2 is going to be even more wild than the first season,' wrote David Feder. 

'Tiger King 2 is going to be even more wild than the first season,' wrote David Feder.

'Houston's own Tiger King,' said another poster, with a picture of Cuevas with the tiger

Rex Chapman wrote: 'Oh nothing - just a loose tiger in a Houston, Texas neighborhood'

'I think the part we might want to focus on right now, Houston, is "but the tiger's whereabouts are still unknown"'

'Where does one stash a tiger on short notice,' asked Brian Beutler, with New York Times columnist Elizabeth Bruenig replying: 'Well I used to know a guy but he's dealing with some legal troubles'

'Houston's own Tiger King,' said another poster, with a picture of Cuevas with the tiger.

Rex Chapman wrote: 'Oh nothing - just a loose tiger in a Houston, Texas neighborhood'.

'I think the part we might want to focus on right now, Houston, is "but the tiger's whereabouts are still unknown"' Michelle Lyons wrote.

'Where does one stash a tiger on short notice,' asked Brian Beutler, with New York Times columnist Elizabeth Bruenig replying: 'Well I used to know a guy but he's dealing with some legal troubles'.