February becoming another bad month for homicides

Keith Paul

Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2001 | 11:07 a.m.

February is starting off just as violent and deadly as January, which ended with the third highest single month total of homicides.

Metro Police were called to a convenience store at Olive and Atlantic streets -- near Charleston Boulevard and Eastern Avenue -- about 8:25 a.m. Tuesday for a dead baby in a trash bin.

Minutes later police were called to the 6100 block of Vegas Valley Drive, several miles past Nellis Boulevard, for a body of a man found in the Las Vegas Wash, Lt. Wayne Petersen of Metro's homicide unit said.

But police said there was no obvious trauma to 37-year-old David Ahern, and evidence at the scene indicated he died somewhere else. An autopsy scheduled for today will determine the cause of death.

An autopsy will also determine the cause of death for the baby found in the trash bin. Police said the body is that of a newborn or stillborn male child. Police are not sure if the baby's death is a homicide.

An autopsy has identified a body found Monday inside a storage unit as an elderly woman, and evidence found during the medical examination indicates that she was killed.

The woman was found after customers and employees at a storage business noticed a foul smell emanating from a unit in the 8000 block of West Sahara near Rainbow Boulevard.

Metro Police obtained a search warrant and found the woman's body inside a plastic trash can with the lid taped shut, Petersen said.

The exact cause of death has not been determined, and the person who rented the storage unit has not yet been found.

There have been 22 homicides -- counting Ahern's death as a homicide -- in Metro's jurisdictions so far this year compared with 15 at the same time last year. There was a total of 95 homicides last year, the first time since 1990 there were fewer than 100 homicides in a year.

But last month ended with 19 homicides, the third highest in one month.