Iverson won’t be prosecuted

Bill Gang

Friday, June 27, 1997 | 11:17 a.m.

The father of a 7-year-old girl raped and murdered in a Primm casino restroom won't face charges that he neglected his daughter's safety and set the stage for the brutal crime.

"There is no basis at this time for criminal prosecution," District Attorney Stewart Bell said Thursday.

New information from Metro's continuing investigation would seem to contradict the initial assumption that 57-year-old LeRoy Iverson had irresponsibly abandoned his two children to the dangers of a video arcade.

Prosecutors originally had contemplated charges against Iverson based on reports that he spent the early morning hours of Memorial Day gambling while the children were left to amuse themselves.

Sherrice Iverson was killed about 4 a.m. after she was followed into a women's restroom and sexually assaulted.

Jeremy Strohmeyer, an 18-year-old Long Beach, Calif., high school senior, has been charged in Sherrice's slaying and is sitting in a California jail while his attorney, Leslie Abramson, fights Nevada's attempts to extradite him.

Many of the suspected killer's movements have been documented on security videotapes, and Abramson has disputed that Strohmeyer is the one on those tapes.

Strohmeyer's companion that night, 18-year-old David Cash Jr., has implicated his friend. Strohmeyer, in a statement to police, allegedly admitted his role and gave details of the girl's demise.

The question for many is whether the slaying could have been avoided.

Should Sherrice have even been in a casino at such an hour with marginal supervision?

While LeRoy Iverson gambled, it was the responsibility of his 14-year-old son, Harold, to keep track of Sherrice.

Metro Police's continuing investigation into the incident, according to law enforcement sources, indicates that the Iversons' late-night stopover in Primm, at the California border 50 miles southwest of Las Vegas, was not unusual.

The family weekend trips to Las Vegas usually ended with the family sleeping until the afternoon hours and then starting the return trip to Los Angeles in the cool of the evening, the sources said.

The return trip routinely involved a stopover at Primm, where the children looked forward to playing games in the video arcade.

Harold Iverson told authorities in California that his father usually checked on the youngsters every 20 minutes or so, including the night of the slaying.

According to the investigation, shortly before the murder LeRoy Iverson was supervising his daughter while his son went to their car to retrieve a pack of cigarettes for his father.

Iverson, however, had to use the restroom and left his daughter alone for a few moments.

Videotapes show the girl going into the women's restroom, only to be followed a few moments later by the suspected killer.

When Iverson returned to where he left his daughter, she was gone and when a search of the area failed to locate her, he went to the Primm Valley hotel-casino's security officers for help, according to sources.

When that search proved fruitless, security guards sent a maid into the women's restroom, where the girl's lifeless body was found propped on a toilet.

Although the investigation has cast Iverson in a better light, Bell said the investigation is ongoing and "if it shows that someone other than Strohmeyer broke the law, they will be charged."

The one that many in the public have suggested should face criminal charges is Cash, who admitted he followed Strohmeyer into the restroom and saw him struggling with the girl, but left immediately and never notified security officers.

He was not charged because there is no law requiring a person who witnesses a crime to report it to authorities or attempt to stop it.

Cash kept quiet about the incident until he was identified from images on security videotapes that were released to the media and broadcast on California television news shows.