Competency of suspect in singer’s death in doubt

Bill Gang

Monday, Oct. 18, 1999 | 10:55 a.m.

John Flowers, who had been declared mentally incompetent to stand trial for murder in the slaying of Las Vegas singer Ginger Rios, is better now, doctors at the state mental facility say.

But psychiatrists hired by the public defender's office who have examined Flowers since his return to Las Vegas say he still is mentally unfit for trial.

The question that will face District Judge Michael Douglas is whether Flowers is simply faking.

Flowers was in Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis' courtroom Friday to have a preliminary hearing set in the case, but that didn't occur because of recent evaluations that throw the defendant's competence into question.

In a procedural move, Flowers waived his preliminary hearing to get the case to Douglas' courtroom so the issue of his sanity again can be addressed. Only District Courts have the authority to commit defendants to the state mental facility.

Deputy District Attorney Ed Kane fumed Friday that the continuing delays are unwarranted and the criminal charges in the 1997 slaying need to be resolved.

He said he wants a full evidentiary hearing on Flowers' mental condition, requiring testimony from psychiatrists at the state's mental facility at Lake's Crossing, near Sparks, as well as those from Las Vegas.

Douglas will set that hearing date on Oct. 25.

The Rios family and prosecutors have worried that Flowers is trying to be declared too infirm mentally to ever stand trial. That would result in his going to a long-term mental facility.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon told Douglas at a competency hearing for Flowers last year that "this guy is good for two murders." He was referring not only to the murder of Rios, whose body was found buried in a grave in the southern Arizona desert, but to the death of a still-unidentified woman whose body was buried nearby. Both graves were concealed beneath concrete caps.

Rios was killed April 4, 1997, after her husband, Mark Hollinger, drove her to the Spy Craft store, 3507 Maryland Parkway, which was managed by Flowers.

Hollinger told police the 20-year-old victim never emerged from the store, but Flowers said she left after buying a book about how to kill people and then disappear.

Hollinger last year called that "an Academy Award-winning display that had me totally fooled."

"I think he's still continuing the act," Hollinger said.

But several years ago Flowers spent time in a mental institution as a result of federal charges of transporting stolen property.

In the Rios case, Flowers' wife came forward in August 1997 with information that led police to the recovery of the woman's body as well as the second body.

As a result Flowers was arrested in Los Angeles on murder charges and returned to Nevada.