Witnesses provide vivid ddescription of murder on the strip

Bob Shemeligian

Thursday, March 21, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

"I guess I'm a killer now," panhandler Trent Strader was quoted as saying as he stood over James Smith as the Scottish tourist was drawing his last breaths.

Metro Police Officer Nancy Howe, the last of several witnesses who testified at a preliminary hearing Tuesday morning in Justice Court, reported hearing Strader make that statement Jan. 3 after the stabbing murder of the 65-year-old Smith on the Strip.

After the testimony, Justice of the Peace William Jansen ruled there was sufficient evidence to hold Strader, 40, for trial. He will be arraigned April 4 before District Judge Gene Porter.

Smith, a tourist from Ayr, Scotland, 60 miles southwest of Glasgow, had been stabbed several times with a hunting knife, witnesses testified, and was rushed to University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Howe, who was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene, testified that Strader told her, "He (Smith) was messing with me, so I went crazy. I'm glad he's dead."

The officer also testified that Strader "was extremely unkempt and had the appearance of a transient."

As Howe spoke, Strader, whose collar-length brown hair and beard had been trimmed for his court appearance, calmly picked lint from his detention center dark blue jumpsuit and took notes with a pencil.

Howe also testified that although Strader had only minor cuts on his hands minutes after the crime, the suspect was covered with blood.

Earlier, Clark County Deputy Medical Examiner Robert Jordan testified that an autopsy on Smith revealed that the victim had been stabbed six times in the chest, back and neck, and that two of the stab wounds -- to the chest and to the neck -- were serious enough to be fatal.

The first witness was San Diego tourist Alfredo Zepeda, who testified he was walking along the Strip with his wife at about 10:45 a.m. when he saw the altercation between Strader and Smith in front of the Fashion Show Mall.

He (Strader) "was all over the victim," Zepeda testified.

Zepeda, who chased after Strader and helped restrain the suspect, reported that "he was real upset."

"A security guard asked (Strader) why he was covered with blood," Zepeda testified, "and he said, 'I just stabbed a man over there.'"