Slain bartender’s family sues tavern

Bill Gang

Thursday, Sept. 24, 1998 | 10:56 a.m.

The family of a graveyard shift bartender murdered during a robbery at Doc Holliday's Tavern has filed a lawsuit against the business, a barbeque restaurant inside and the two men charged in the slaying.

The lawsuit filed through attorney Gary Lipsman alleges the tavern failed to have adequate security measures for its employees and customers when they knew the business "attracted violence and criminals.

"The fact that Doc Holliday's had a female employee work the graveyard shift alone increased the chance that harm, violence and crime would occur," the lawsuit stated.

The tavern, according to the legal action, should have provided trained security personnel, scheduled two employees on the graveyard shift, provided a panic alarm button and secured the video surveillence recorder.

Shelly Lokken was alone in the bar when she was bound with handcuffs during the late night holdup on May 5, forced into the restaurant's cooler and killed with two bullets to the head. The security videotape was taken from the recorder by the killer.

Charles Randolph, 31, who had been fired three days before from the Herman's Barbecue business inside the tavern at Westcliff and Durango drives, is charged with murder, robbery and other counts in Lokken's death.

Tyrone Laffayette Garner, 41, is charged as Randolph's accomplice who waited in the getaway car and acted as a lookout.

The lawsuit claims that Lokken's daughter, Brett Baker, and Lokken's parents, Fred and Joyce Lokken, "suffered devastating, traumatic and permanent harm, anguish, grief and sorrow" because of the murder.

The lawsuit alleges that Herman's Barbecue "knew or should have known of Randolph's violent, dangerous and criminal tendencies, behavior and background."

Randolph and Garner were captured after two prostitutes who were with Garner after the incident tipped police to the defendants' identities, saying Garner "flipped out" when news reports about the slaying were aired.

A police affidavit filed in the case indicated Garner, of Palmdale, Calif., admitted to detectives that he had driven Randolph to the bar at 8450 Westcliff Dr. but didn't know a robbery was going to occur.

Although Garner was not alleged to have been in the bar, he is still charged with murder because under Nevada's felony murder law, a participant in an incident that leads to murder is as culpable as the actual killer.

A security guard at a nearby apartment complex told police of seeing a Cadillac leave the bar with its lights off shortly before the murder was discovered.