Suspect indicted in 1997 slaying of teen girl

Bill Gang

Friday, Jan. 14, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

A Clark County grand jury indictment is scheduled to be returned today over the 1997 kidnapping and murder of a 16-year-old girl who vanished after getting off work at a fast-food restaurant.

The girl's remains were found in the trunk of a burned-out car by a couple rock hunting in a remote desert area more than six months after she was killed. They reported the find to Metro Police but officers where unable to find the car and they then forgot about the report.

A month later, the same couple returned to the area and found the car and skeleton still in place. Again they called police and, this time, said they would wait to guide officers to the site.

The indictment, which Deputy District Attorney Bill Koot began presenting to a Clark County grand jury in February, names 31-year-old Alfonzo Jackson, who already is awaiting sentencing in March on a charge of attempted sexual assault.

Shavonne Graves disappeared late on July 24, 1997, as she walked a block from her job to meet a girlfriend at the Albertson's supermarket at Sahara Avenue and Valley View Boulevard.

The friend was Jackson's girlfriend and Koot said there were indications Graves had been trying to persuade her to break up with the man. Koot said it is believed Graves accepted a ride with Jackson.

At 7 a.m. the day after the girl vanished, there was a report of a man seeing a car burning in a desert area near Apex, north of the Las Vegas Valley. Police, however, never investigated the incident.

The hulk remained in the desert until February 1998 when the rock hunters initially found the vehicle and looked into the trunk.