Andres Perches Charged in Murder of Howard County Woman Shelby Perches

A Howard County man now sits charged with killing his own wife, nearly 18 months after she was reported missing from the Knott/Big Spring area of West Texas.

The Texas Rangers, working alongside the Howard County Sheriff's Office, arrested 31-year-old Andres Perches on April 2, 2026. Perches faces a first-degree felony murder charge under Texas Penal Code §19.02 and a third-degree felony charge of failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements. He is being held at Howard County Jail on a bond totaling $1.1 million: $1 million for the murder charge and $100,000 for the registration violation.

The shared last name is not a coincidence. Shelby Perches had been reported missing, and the arrest URL from CBS7 identified the case explicitly as connected to Andres Perches's wife, making this a domestic homicide allegation rather than a stranger crime. The fact that Perches was already on the sex offender registry before the arrest adds a significant layer of criminal history that prosecutors can potentially introduce at trial.

Shelby was last seen in the Knott/Big Spring area on September 12, 2024, and the offense date listed in jail records is October 1, 2024, roughly three weeks after her disappearance. The gap between that date and Andres Perches's arrest spans nearly 18 months, a window that reflects how methodically and, at times, quietly the investigation moved. In March 2026, the Texas Rangers and the Howard County Sheriff's Office went public, releasing a statement asking for any information about the missing woman's whereabouts. That public appeal, nearly a year and a half into the case, was the visible turning point. The arrest came five weeks later.

What the murder charge requires prosecutors to prove is specific and demanding. Under Texas Penal Code §19.02, the state must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Andres Perches intentionally or knowingly caused Shelby's death, or that he intended to cause serious bodily injury and committed an act clearly dangerous to human life that resulted in her death. As a first-degree felony in Texas, a conviction carries a sentencing range of 5 to 99 years, or life, plus a fine of up to $10,000. The secondary failure-to-register charge, a third-degree felony, carries 2 to 10 years and signals that Perches was already a registered sex offender at the time of Shelby's disappearance, a fact the prosecution will almost certainly surface before a jury.

The Texas Rangers and Howard County Sheriff's Office confirmed the investigation remains active, with no further information available at this time. Charging affidavits and arraignment filings, once entered into the public record, will offer the first detailed accounting of the physical evidence, forensic findings, and witness accounts that ultimately moved this case from a missing person bulletin to a murder charge.