Friday, September 18, 2009

Las Vegas, NV: Murder-suicide probe in west valley reveals grim scene

By LAWRENCE MOWER
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Las Vegas police discovered the valley’s fourth murder-suicide or attempted suicide in 12 days Thursday afternoon when they walked into the home of a recently deceased husband and a wife who had been dead for possibly two years.

The man had written a letter to the department’s records section, where an employee received it Thursday. The letter claimed he had killed his wife two years ago and that he was going to kill himself, Lt. Lew Roberts said.

Shortly before 2 p.m., officers went to the home at 1516 Willowbark Court, near Charleston Boulevard and Fort Apache Road, and found the home locked.

A locksmith opened the door, and police found the man dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the back bedroom.

The man’s wife was found in another room of the house.

Roberts said he didn’t know if she had been deceased for two years.

“She had been dead a while,” he said.

The names of the two people have not been released.

Of four such cases in the valley in the last 12 days, three have been in the Metropolitan Police Department’s jurisdiction.

On Sept. 5, a Texas man shot and killed a North Las Vegas woman with whom he had shared a relationship before turning the gun on himself. He died a few days later.

Two days later, a 51-year-old man shot and killed his girlfriend with a rifle from a second-floor landing in their northwest valley home. He called police after shooting himself in the neck and is expected to survive.

On Sept. 14, a housekeeper discovered the body of a 29-year-old woman shot to death by her boyfriend in her home near Maryland Parkway and Silverado Ranch Boulevard. Her boyfriend’s body was found upstairs with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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