Slaying at Golden Gate

Keith Paul

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 11:17 a.m.

Anne Cohns never liked her mother's boyfriend, Larry D. Taylor. She just didn't trust him.

She hadn't heard his name since her mother, Gloria Cohns, ended her six-month relationship with him two years ago.

But when Anne found out her mother was gunned down while dealing blackjack in the Golden Gate casino Wednesday morning, the 14-year-old instantly thought of Taylor.

She quickly rummaged through a backpack and came up with an old picture of the former casino security guard and kitchen worker.

"I was pointing to the picture yelling to the police, 'Is that him? Is that him?' " she said.

It was a photo of the 37-year-old suspect, charged with chasing Gloria Cohns through a busy casino floor and shooting her multiple times.

Taylor was being held today in the Clark County Detention Center on murder charges. His arraignment had not been set as of this morning, jail officials said.

"I told my mom I didn't like him, but she was happy," Anne Cohns said of the time they lived in Las Vegas with Taylor. "But then he got real possessive. He didn't want her to go anywhere without him. I told my mom I wanted to (move), and we did."

Gloria Cohns, 37, was dealing cards to gamblers at her blackjack table in the casino when Metro Police say her ex-boyfriend appeared in front of her, raised a handgun and started shooting.

Cohns turned and ran from the pit as terrified gamblers scrambled for cover. Taylor then chased after her, police said.

The mother of three children was apparently hit by one of the shots as she fled the casino floor and ran into a bathroom. Taylor is accused of chasing her into the bathroom where more shots were fired. Cohns escaped from the bathroom, but a shot in the back knocked her to the ground. "He walked up while she was on the ground and fired more shots according to witnesses," said Lt. Wayne Petersen of Metro Police's homicide unit. After finally killing Cohns on the floor of the casino, police say Taylor started muttering about how he should kill himself, but instead handed the gun to another casino dealer. As soon as he gave up the gun, security officers tackled him and held him on the floor until police arrived.

Taylor had recently moved to Reno, and he checked into the Golden Gate hotel-casino on Tuesday, Petersen said.

"It's apparently a domestic violence homicide, but we don't know why it happened," he said.

Even with seven to nine shots fired, Cohns was the only person hit by the gunfire, police said. It was not clear how many times she had been hit by gunfire.

Taylor has worked since 1989 in several casino-hotels in Las Vegas and Reno, Petersen said.

Cohns had worked at the Golden Gate, located at 1 E. Fremont St., for about a year, hotel officials said.

Taylor and Cohns had met while working as security guards at a casino in Las Vegas. It was Taylor who suggested Cohns become a dealer, Anne Cohns said.

The teenager said her father is coming to Las Vegas today to take her and her 11-year-old brother and 7-year-old sister to Arkansas where he lives.

Gamblers said chaos engulfed the area around the blackjack pit when the shooting started at 10:38 a.m. Wednesday.

"I was playing blackjack at the next table. I heard the first shot and hit the floor. I looked up and saw the man with the gun," said Lynne Zuffranieri of Phoenix. "I told myself to crawl. I couldn't move at first. You didn't know where to go.

"It was horrible. You just can't believe something like this is happening," she said.

Michael Redford of Santa Monica, Calif., said he was sitting at the blackjack table right behind Cohns' table.

"After the first shot, I saw the gun and got down," he said. "I didn't see where he went, I just didn't want to get shot."

While many people fled the casino, others pressed around the shooting scene to see what happened, Darrell Bogard, a hotel-casino security guard, said.

"I heard on the radio about the shooting. I went there, saw the shooter and saw people coming" to the area, he said. "I turned around and told people to leave."

Security officers and police were able to respond so quickly because of the fast thinking of a pit boss, said Mark Brandenburg, owner of the hotel-casino.

"Tieu Ronca, a pit boss for many years, who is just a sweetheart and all of 5 feet tall, saw a man pull a gun on one of her dealers, and she immediately grabbed the radio and called security," he said.

The casino was closed after the shooting but reopened Wednesday night.

"We closed in order to cooperate with Metro, but we wanted to open to get things back to as normal as possible," Brandenburg said. "I am very proud of our security department and some of the other people down at the scene who responded so professionally under those circumstances."

Gamblers who left the casino without picking up their chips can return to get their money, Brandenburg said. He said the area was secured, and there is surveillance video to determine where many of the players were sitting.