Sun City murder detailed at trial

Bill Gang

Thursday, Jan. 30, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

District Attorney Stewart Bell detailed for a District Court jury how murder defendant Donald Sherman was arrested in a Sun City Summerlin killing after police found him passed out in the victim's car on a Santa Barbara, Calif., street.

During opening statements Wednesday, Bell said Sherman, 32, left a trail of receipts from the use of credit cards stolen after the 1994 beating death of Dr. Lester Bauer.

The incident was the first in the retirement community off West Lake Mead Boulevard in Summerlin.

Bell told the jury in District Judge Stephen Huffaker's courtroom that the murder was the result of a breakup of Bauer's daughter, Diane, and Sherman.

"He was angry with losing her and losing his lavish lifestyle," the prosecutor said, explaining that on one occasion $10,000 was taken from the doctor's bank account.

On the night of May 29, 1994, Bauer's killer broke into his home through an unlocked bedroom window, beat the doctor to death with a hammer as he slept and looted the home of valuables and his car.

"The beating crushed his face and skull," Bell said.

The murder shocked the well-to-do Sun City community in Summerlin, which, according to statistics, enjoys one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

Bauer had moved to Las Vegas from Wenatchee, Wash., with his ill wife, Doris, in 1988. Doris Bauer died six months later.

As Bauer's body lay undiscovered in his home, the stolen credit cards were quickly used to hire a woman several times from Swinging Suzy's Dancers and Entertainers.

Bell indicated the woman would identify Sherman as the man she visited in his downtown motel room.

It wasn't until three days after the murder that Bauer's body was found by a Metro Police officer who was summoned by a neighbor concerned that she hadn't seen him for days. Newspapers were piling up outside the home at 9008 Starmount Drive.

Although Sherman's fingerprints were not found on the window that had been left unlocked, a fingerprint was discovered on another window, indicating he tried to use that as an entrance point, Bell said.

Sherman's attorneys will give their opening statement after the prosecution's case is concluded later this week.

If Sherman is convicted, he will face the possibility of the death penalty, but it would not be his first murder conviction.

He served more than 10 years for murder in Idaho before being paroled in 1992. The killing occurred when a then-17-year-old Sherman tried to rob a grocery store in Sandpoint, Idaho, but was charged by the shop owner. Sherman shot him with a .22-caliber pistol.