Local news briefs for December 15, 2000

Friday, Dec. 15, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

Elderly couple die in fire

A 95-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman died Thursday morning in a fire in their mobile home in Moapa Valley, about 45 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

Volunteer firefighters from three Clark County rural departments, Moapa Valley, Logandale and Overton, were called out to the home about 4:30 a.m. Thursday. The couple were found dead in a bedroom, Clark County Fire officials said.

A space heater, possibly placed too close to clothing or furniture, was determined to be the cause of the blaze. The fire destroyed the mobile home and damage was estimated at $30,000, officials said.

The names of the couple were not released this morning.

Their deaths are the ninth and 10th fire-related fatalities so far this year in the Clark County Fire Department's jurisdiction.

FBI accuses woman of hiring hit man

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- The FBI has arrested a 37-year-old Flagstaff woman who allegedly tried to hire a Las Vegas hitman to kill her husband.

Brenda Lee Kelch was taken into custody Wednesday and was being held in Coconino County Jail on a federal complaint of a murder-for-hire scheme.

Kelch allegedly called a Las Vegas man and wanted him to murder her husband, Russell, whom she was trying to divorce.

The Nevada man alerted Las Vegas police and an undercover FBI agent got involved.

A meeting was set up at a Flagstaff hotel room Wednesday where Kelch allegedly offered to pay $1,000 before the slaying and $40,000 after the job was done, according to the FBI.

Planning coalition eyes Goodman

The Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition will look to the mayor of Las Vegas as a leader in determining how to develop the area.

Oscar Goodman was named chairman of the group at its Thursday night meeting and North Las Vegas Councilwoman Shari Buck was chosen as the board's vice chairwoman.

The coalition includes members from Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Clark County and the Clark County School District, and deals with regional planning issues.

Underground test called a success

An underground explosion triggered at 3:28 p.m. Thursday at the Nevada Test Site was successful and did not create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Derek Scammell said.

Oboe 6, sponsored by the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was the 12th subcritical experiment in an ongoing series at the Test Site to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons stored in the U.S. arsenal.

Subcritical experiments are scientific tests designed to fill in technical gaps about how plutonium is ejected during an experiment.