Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1998 | 11:08 a.m.
Amy DeChant, wanted in connection with the July 1996 murder of Las Vegas bookmaker Bruce Weinstein, was arrested Wednesday morning in Port St. Lucie in South Florida.
Metro Police homicide Sgt. Kevin Manning said Las Vegas authorities will now seek to extradite DeChant back to Las Vegas in order to stand trial.
"We're trying to get her back," Manning said. "Either she'll wave (extradition) or she'll fight, and we'll have to get a governor's warrant, but we will get her back."
These words are music to the ears of Sylvia White, Weinstein's mother.
"I feel like a burden has been lifted," White said. "And I'm going to the cemetery this afternoon to tell my son."
DeChant, 49, was profiled on America's Most Wanted just weeks ago, and White said a tip from a viewer of the television program led to her capture.
The Las Vegas woman, who owned a carpet cleaning business and liked to frequent Las Vegas poker rooms, disappeared in September 1997 after she and employee Robert Jones were charged with Weinstein's murder by a Clark County grand jury. Jones was arrested in New Mexico a month later.
"I was beginning to have my doubts that she would ever be found, but America's Most Wanted told me they would find her, and that's what has kept me going," White said.
Weinstein disappeared July 7, 1996, from his southwest Las Vegas home that he shared with DeChant.
The remains of the 46-year-old bookmaker were discovered Aug. 11 in a makeshift grave off the Old Alamo Highway about half a mile west of State Route 168.
Immediately, the investigation focused on DeChant and Jones.
Investigators found blood stains in the freshly cleaned carpets of Weinstein's home after searching for clues to his disappearance.
Other sources point out that a rolled-up spare piece of carpet is believed to be missing from the garage of the home, and that DeChant changed her story several times about the events leading to Weinstein's disappearance.
Three weeks after Weinstein disappeared, DeChant was arrested when police found more than $100,000 in cash, false birth certificates and wigs in her car.
After spending nearly two months in the Harford County, Md., jail, DeChant was released Sept. 13 after Michael Gerber, her brother, posted $5,000 cash bail. The bail amount had been reduced from $2 million, according to court records.
White said she's looking forward to DeChant's trial.
"I will be there every day," she said.
With the weekend arrest of Robert Wayne Jones, a material witness who has been on the lam for almost a year, relatives and friends of murdered local bookmaker Bruce Weinstein say they hope Metro Police finally will be able to solve the case.
One of the first people Metro homicide detectives called after Jones' Saturday arrest at his Las Vegas home was Sylvia White, Weinstein's mother.
"I've been praying for this day to come," White said. "I finally got the call I've been waiting for after 11 months."
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