Compromise guilty plea made in dancer’s death

Kim Smith

Tuesday, April 4, 2000 | 10:51 a.m.

One day after backing out of a plea agreement in the 1997 death of a Las Vegas singer and dancer, John Flowers this morning pleaded guilty but mentally ill.

Flowers admitted the state could prove he killed Ginger Rios three years ago today with deliberation and premeditation. But the plea agreement did not require him to admit his own culpability.

Flowers was scheduled on Monday to plead guilty but mentally ill, but said "No way" when he was told he would have to admit he killed Rios with deliberation and premeditation. Today's plea agreement was a compromise.

Rios' father, George, said that while he's pleased Flowers has finally pleaded guilty, he will remain somewhat anxious until Flowers is sentenced May 16.

"The system doesn't always work the way it's supposed to," George Rios said.

Ginger Rios, 20, disappeared after walking into Flowers' Spy Craft bookstore on April 4, 1997, to buy a book on improving credit reports. Her husband of five months, Mark Hollinger, waited outside for her, but she never came out.

Four months later Flowers' wife led police to Rios' body in the desert outside Tucson, Ariz. She told police her husband told her he killed Rios after she "got in his face."

Authorities believe Flowers is also responsible for the death of an unidentified woman found buried near Rios.

Flowers owned and operated Spy Craft bookstores in Las Vegas and Tucson.

It wasn't until recently that Flowers was declared competent to stand trial. If he had gone to trial, he could have received the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The mentally-ill aspect of the guilty plea doesn't affect Flowers' potential sentence of 25 years to life in prison. It merely guarantees he will receive treatment after he is sentenced.

George Rios and his wife, Denise, described their daughter as a woman who loved life and who brightened the lives of those around her.

"She had all of these dreams and we believed what she said was going to happen," George Rios said.

"All of her dreams died with her, and they were our dreams too," Denise Rios said.

Hearing the details of the murder this morning was just as painful as it was at the time of Flowers' arrest, George Rios said.

"To think it ended the way it ended, with this person coming from nowhere," George Rios said. "He had a nothing type of life, and he had problems with the law his whole life. Here was a man who had no potential at all, and he took the life of someone who had so much to give."

Kim Smith covers courts for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2321 or by e-mail at kimberly@lasvegassun.com