Henderson cops compare armored car, casino heists

Keith Paul

Friday, June 9, 2000 | 10:43 a.m.

Henderson Police are comparing ballistics and blood evidence from the deadly March armored car holdup to see if that crime is connected to two men accused of a string of Strip heists.

Jose Vigoa, 40, and Oscar Cisneros, 23, were booked into the Clark County jail Thursday on robbery, kidnapping and attempted murder charges connected to holdups at the Bellagio, New York-New York, MGM Grand, Desert Inn and Mandalay Bay hotel-casinos. They were held this morning without bond and are scheduled to appear in court Monday.

Police will need a search warrant to draw blood from the two men to compare it to blood found in a car used in the March 3 armored car robbery that escalated into a shootout, leaving Armored Transport of Nevada guards Richard F. Sosa and Gary Dean Prestidge II dead. Detectives have not applied for that search warrant yet, Capt. Monty Sparks of Henderson Police said today.

Sparks said police will use a comparison of blood -- used to determine blood type -- and not DNA testing for now. He said DNA testing may be performed later.

"We have the most to gain and the most to lose," Sparks said. "It's been said that (the Henderson homicides/robbery) was tied into the Desert Inn and there were arrests in the Desert Inn robbery."

Several guns were seized during a search of Vigoa and Cisneros' homes Wednesday and storage areas and the ballistics of those weapons will be compared to the bullets and shell casings found at the scene of the Henderson slayings, Sparks said.

He added that Henderson Police are not in a rush to file murder charges because the two suspects are in jail charged with many crimes and "aren't going anywhere."

Police know that before he was killed, Prestidge shot one of the robbers -- mostly likely in the leg -- during the holdup outside the Ross Dress for Less on Stephanie Street in Henderson. Police found a large amount of blood in a getaway car used in the robbery.

Sparks would not say if either man arrested Wednesday had a bullet wound in the leg.

Metro Police have suspected the two men for several weeks if not longer in the series of casino robberies, but a break came when detectives held a picture of Vigoa next to the Bellagio surveillance video that captured images of the robbery. They also called his federal probation officer, who confirmed it was him.

At about 5 p.m. Wednesday, police spotted Vigoa at Windmill Lane and Pecos Road as he got into a sport utility vehicle with his wife and daughter, said Lt. John Alamshaw of Metro's robbery unit.

They followed him and tried to make a traffic stop, but Vigoa sped off, leading police onto U.S. 95 southbound in a chase that reached speeds of 100 mph before exiting near the Galleria mall in Henderson.

Vigoa drove the wrong way on surface streets trying to avoid capture before hitting a tree near Sunset Road and Mountain Vista. He then ran from the vehicle, leaving his wife and child behind, but police caught him a short time later.

As police were chasing Vigoa, other officers were in the 6500 block of Cordelle Drive, near Nellis Air Force Base, arresting Cisneros. At the same time, SWAT officers and detectives went to a junkyard on Tropicana Avenue and Boulder Highway to search for evidence.

Alamshaw said guns, body armor, clothing possibly worn during the Bellagio robbery, dollar-value coins from several casinos and a large amount of cash were seized at several locations.

Henderson Police have been working with Metro and the FBI since the March 3 slayings of the two armored car guards.