Case of attacks on elderly women to get new judge

Kim Smith

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.

A Las Vegas man who could get the death penalty if convicted in the slaying of one elderly woman and an attack on another will be getting a new judge.

District Judge Mark Gibbons agreed to step down from the Anthony Dotson case Wednesday because he once worked with a son of one of the victims.

The case, scheduled to go to trial in January, will be randomly assigned to another judge.

Dotson, 41, is accused of bludgeoning Doris Bair, 79, to death in December and robbing 87-year-old Kathryn Waldman a few days later.

Gibbons once worked in the same law office as Waldman's son, Herb Waldman. He stepped down at the request of the defense attorneys who are handling the case, Deputy Special Public Defenders Daren Richards and Alzora Jackson.

Gibbons had been scheduled to decide Wednesday if he should grant a prosecutor's motion that would force Dotson to give police blood and hair samples.

Police found Bair's body in her Bracken Avenue home after neighbors became concerned they hadn't seen her in awhile. An autopsy revealed she died from several blows to the head and most likely died on Dec. 12.

Police say that whoever killed her stole several items from her home and took her 1991 Mercury, which was later found abandoned downtown.

The day before Bair died she called police to report that a prowler was ringing her front doorbell and knocking on her back door. She also reported that someone had switched off a circuit breaker at her home, causing her lights to go out.

Dotson was arrested in connection with Bair's death after he allegedly stole Waldman's car and purse from her in the parking lot of University Medical Center on Dec. 17.

Dotson faces three counts of burglary, one count of first-degree kidnapping of a victim over 65, three counts of robbery of a victim over 65, murder of a victim over 65 and battery causing substantial bodily harm of a victim over 65.

Dotson has a 1987 California robbery conviction.