Local briefs for August 19, 1999

Thursday, Aug. 19, 1999 | 11:22 a.m.

Man arrested in girlfriend's death

As the family of Tamara Thiros mourned the loss of the 53-year-old medical transcriber, a man police said beat her to death is behind bars.

Metro Police arrested Leonard Gregory Soto, 35, of Las Vegas on Tuesday when he arrived for an interview at the homicide detail office at 6753 W. Charleston Blvd., Lt. Wayne Petersen said.

Soto is being held at the Clark County Detention Center on murder charges.

The charges came after police investigated the death of Thiros, found lying on her bedroom floor early in the morning of Aug. 1. She was Soto's longtime girlfriend and had grown up in Las Vegas.

Thiros was buried in Las Vegas on Aug. 5.

Police opened a murder investigation after detectives responded to the scene, Petersen said. The autopsy report said Thiros died from internal bleeding after being kicked in the stomach.

Advertising campaign to start in Nevada

Nevada is one of five states selected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a new advertising campaign aimed at reducing the sale of tobacco products to minors.

The ads will also run in Colorado, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Michigan and in several individual cities including Washington, D.C., and Rochester, N.Y.

The $5 million advertising campaign, which will include radio, print and outdoor advertising, targets retailers and clerks in stores that sell cigarettes.

The campaign is built around the theme that tobacco products shouldn't be sold to minors "for a reason."

According to the 1997 Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 69 percent of high school students have tried smoking cigarettes and 15 percent report regular or daily smoking. Forty-one percent of the students who bought cigarettes in a store were not asked to show proof of age. Two-thirds of those students were under 18.

Jaywalking man hit by car

A 60-year-old man remained in critical condition at University Medical Center today after he was struck by a car on Sunset Road east of Pecos Road, a nursing supervisor said.

Ronald Bennett of Las Vegas was trying to cross Sunset and was not in a crosswalk, witnesses told Metro Police.

As Bennett tried to cross the westbound travel lanes, he walked into the path of a 1985 Nissan driven by Wayne Chapman, 30, of Henderson. Chapman was unable to avoid striking Bennett, police said.

Chapman was not injured in the accident.

Child abuse charges overturned

The Nevada Supreme Court has reversed the child abuse and neglect convictions of a Tonopah man whose trailer caught fire, killing one of his sons and injuring the other in 1997.

The court also dismissed the conviction of trafficking in methamphetamine against George O'Conner Beard on grounds there was an illegal search of the burned-out trailer. But it upheld his convictions on possession of marijuana and two counts of being an ex-felon in possession of firearms.

Beard heated his mobile home with a space heater, which apparently touched off the blaze. One of his two children, 5-year-old Joseph, was trapped inside the home and later died. The other child suffered burns. Beard, according to witnesses, tried to go back into the burning trailer to save his son but was restrained.

The Nye County district attorney's office brought child abuse and neglect charges against Beard on the theory he did not provide a safe living environment for his children.

At the trial, Beard was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of his son.