Witness in Albertson’s massacre is released

Kim Smith

Thursday, March 2, 2000 | 10:51 a.m.

One day after providing attorneys with her videotaped deposition, the key witness in the Zane Floyd trial is walking free.

Tracie Rose Carter, who is due to give birth any day now, gave her version Wednesday of the events that led to a killing spree last June at the Albertson's at Sahara Avenue and Valley View Boulevard.

Floyd is accused of walking into the grocery store early on the morning of June 3 and opening fire with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing four people.

Carter, 21, has told police that an hour before the rampage, Floyd called Love Bound, a outcall escort service, asking them to send a young woman to his West Oakey Boulevard home. When Carter arrived, Floyd raped her, showed her 19 shotgun shells and said he was going to kill the first 19 people he saw, according to her statements to police.

Prosecutors believe Carter's testimony will show jurors Floyd's frame of mind when he walked into the grocery store. The district attorney's office had asked that Carter be arrested on a material witness warrant in November after they lost contact with her.

Carter's attorney Chip Siegel had tried to get the witness released to house arrest or moved to a halfway house in January, but District Judge Jeffrey Sobel refused the request for house arrest and Siegel could not find space in a halfway house.

After the trial was delayed from March to July, Sobel agreed to allow Carter's testimony to be committed to videotape and to release her from jail.

Siegel said Wednesday afternoon that the Clark County District Attorney's victim/witness advocates were working with social service agencies to find an appropriate place for Carter to stay until the trial. Carter will be required to check in with the prosecutors on a weekly basis.

Carter told The Sun in an exclusive interview the child she carries is her ex-boyfriend's and not Floyd's.

Carter provided her testimony Wednesday behind closed doors. Sobel closed the proceeding at the request of defense attorney Curtis Brown, who argued that her deposition should be no different than depositions taken in civil matters. Those depositions are traditionally held in law offices outside the presence of a judge, he said.

Depositions are not open court proceedings and the public isn't entitled to attend them, Brown said, adding that whatever information Carter would provide might taint the potential jury pool.

Sobel agreed, noting that the proceeding was the first one he's closed in 10 years.

Kim Smith covers courts for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 455-4844 or (702) 259-2321 or by e-mail at kimberly@lasvegassun.com.