Man kills ex-wife, then himself in store shooting

Jace Radke

Monday, April 16, 2001 | 11:10 a.m.

A 65-year-old man walked into a grocery store Sunday night, killed his ex-wife behind the deli counter, then shot himself to death.

The man, whose name had not been released this morning, entered the Albertson's store at Jones and Lake Mead boulevards minutes before 8 p.m. armed with two revolvers, Metro Police said. He handed a note to an employee before making his way to the deli and shooting his ex-wife, who had worked at the store 10 years.

"The note was on a 3-by-5 card and had some contact numbers on it, and then said that he was there to kill (his ex-wife)," Lt. Wayne Petersen, head of the homicide unit, said.

"Officers arrived and confronted the suspect, who was still behind the counter in the deli. The suspect then went around a corner, behind a wall in the deli out of the officers' view, and shot and killed himself."

No one else was injured in the shooting, police said.

Lisa Hines, 22, who worked in the bakery next to the deli, hid inside a supermarket freezer during the shootings and cried while talking to her mother and brother on her cell phone.

Liz Hines said she thought of Zane Floyd and his bloody rampage that killed four people in a Las Vegas Albertson's in June 1999 as she listened to her terrified daughter.

"She was crying, and she said there was a lot of shooting," Hines said. "She said she was hiding in the cooler, but then her cell phone went dead. We just got here as fast as we could, and the only thing I could think of was the other shooting."

Michael May was across Jones from the grocery store, located in a shopping center at 6140 W. Lake Mead, getting some dinner at Burger King when he heard the shots.

"It sounded like about 10 shots," May said. "I saw a bunch of people running out of the front doors of the Albertson's and into the parking lot. Then the police got here, and they pretty much shut everything down."

The entire shopping center, which includes a Sav-On Drug store, a Hallmark store, a Blockbuster video store and several smaller businesses, was cordoned off by police.

Petersen said several witnesses saw the shooting, and about 10 employees and several shoppers were in the store when the homicide occurred.

Liz Hines said that her daughter, who had worked at the store for five years, knew one of the employees who was at the grocery store on the corner of Sahara Avenue and Valley View Boulevard when Floyd entered that store in 1999.

"That had frightened her, and a lot of people that worked at Albertson's," Hines said. "She was worried that it could happen to her."

In the early morning hours of June 3, 1999, Floyd, after repeatedly raping a young outcall service dancer, donned military fatigues, hid a 12-gauge shotgun under a robe, walked less than a mile to the Sahara store and opened fire.

Killed in the shooting were Lucy Tarantino, 60, Thomas Darnell, 40, Chuck Leos, 40, and Dennis "Troy" Sargent, 31. Zachary Emenegger, 21, survived the shooting and testified against Floyd, who was convicted by a jury and sentenced to death.

Sunday's shooting seems to have stemmed from domestic issues, much like a November 1999 homicide at the Golden Gate casino, where a man was charged with shooting and killing his girlfriend in the crowded downtown casino.

Larry D. Taylor pleaded guilty but mentally ill in the death of Gloria Cohns, who dealt blackjack at the Golden Gate. The charges alleged he chased her through the casino and shot her several times, killing her.

Petersen said domestic homicides that spill over to places of work are the exception rather than the rule.

"It's fairly rare," Petersen said. "You don't often see them in such public places. Most domestic homicides take place in some kind of dwelling."