Baby’s drowning, killing mar holiday

Karen Zekan

Tuesday, May 26, 1998 | 12:04 p.m.

An estimated 250,000 tourists flocked to Las Vegas over the Memorial Day weekend during which at least three Las Vegas Valley residents including an elderly pedestrian, a baby who drowned in a bathtub, and murdered young man.

A resident of an apartment at 1811 Willow Trail, near Vegas and Rancho drives, was also left homeless Monday when his living room was destroyed by a fire investigators believe stated near a sofa about 1:05 p.m.

The occupant was not home at the time and escaped injury, Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said. The fire, which caused an estimated $40,000 in damage, remains under investigation.

The trip back home for a predominantly large number of visitors from Southern California was slow-going for motorists along Interstate 15 some of whom were looking at an eight-hour-plus drive along the congested highway.

Metro Police remained today without the gunman who fatally shot a man and critically injured two others early Sunday morning near The Drink nightclub at Harmon Avenue and Koval Lane.

The three male victims, identified by police only as ages 21, 22, and 23, were walking east on nearby Lana Avenue with a female when an unknown number of occupants in a white car pulled up and exchanged words. As the car began to pull away, one of the victims fired one round from a handgun at the car.

The victims had walked to their car parked in the alley when the white car drove to the entrance of the alley and one of its occupants fired a rifle several times at the victims.

Two of the wounded men were able to run to The Drink for help. Police arrived in the area and found the third man laying on the ground. The most seriously wounded man died shortly after arriving at University Medical Center; a second victim underwent surgery and remained in critical condition, and a third who had been shot in the face was treated in the hospital's trauma ward.

The gunman's car left the area northbound on La Cienega Street, authorities said. Investigators are not sure the make or model of the car, nor the number of passengers.

Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide section at 229-3521 or Secret Witness at 385-5555.

A 14-month-old boy became the third drowning statistic in the valley this year, dying in the bathtub of his southwest Las Vegas home.

Investigators' interviews with the distraught mother had determined that the unidentified woman apparently was sleeping about 4:30 p.m. Friday when the fully dressed child slipped beneath the surface of the overflowing tub inside 8442 Dull Street, near Flamingo Road and Durango Drive.

"It wasn't clear exactly what happened," said Bob Leinbach, Clark County Fire Department spokesman. "The boy had apparently been laying down with his mother, and then somehow got in the tub. Investigators weren't sure if perhaps he turned the water on himself."

The boy was unconscious when his mother pulled him from the tub and remained unresponsive despite the woman's attempts to revive him, Leinbach said.

Tub water, which the woman had not shut off, was flowing down the stairs and through the house when rescue teams arrived minutes later, Leinbach said. The child was rushed by ambulance to UMC where he later died.

Metro traffic investigators are citing jaywalking as the apparent cause of a elderly pedestrian's death Friday at 3:55 p.m.

The Las Vegas man, whose identity was withheld pending family notification, was attempting to head west across Las Vegas Boulevard outside a crosswalk when he was struck and killed near Foremaster Lane by a 1981 Toyota Corolla driven by Everett L. Sheaffer, 75, of Las Vegas.

The accident, which remains under investigation, marked the 48th traffic-related fatality in Metro's jurisdiction this year.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the valley conducted numerous checkpoints and saturation patrols on area streets over the weekend in hopes of keeping intoxicated drivers off the road.

North Las Vegas Police concentrated overnight on Las Vegas Boulevard near Lake Mead Boulevard on Friday, and again on the Boulevard near Pecos Road Saturday. Nevada Highway Patrol and Henderson Police set up their checkpoint along Lake Mead Drive near Lake Las Vegas. Results of the anti-drunken driving efforts were not immediately available.