Driver of dead woman’s car slaying suspect

Keith Paul

Wednesday, June 27, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

The car belonging to an 84-year-old woman found dead in her home Monday was pursued by Henderson Police early Friday, but the driver -- now a slaying suspect -- was able to escape.

The pursuit, which started over a traffic violation, was stopped by the Henderson officer when the driver sped up to as much as 90 mph and started running red lights.

Henderson and Metro police said no one knew of the woman's slaying until days after the pursuit, when about 6:35 p.m. Monday her son found her dead in her home on Linn Lane, near Sunrise Mountain.

The car was registered to Virginia Peart, and Henderson Police asked Metro Police officers to knock on the woman's door Friday. No one answered. Police returned later and knocked again. When they got no answer a second time, officers left a card on the door asking the resident to contact police.

Metro Police didn't see any signs the house had been broken into or other evidence a crime had been committed, said Lt. Wayne Petersen of Metro's homicide unit.

"All we knew at the time was her car was in a pursuit, and she was the registered owner," he said. "We had no reason to believe anything else had happened."

No one has been arrested in connection with the slaying, and police do not have any evidence linking Peart's slaying to three other home invasions in the past two days. Petersen said all of the other home invasions were in different parts of town and the crimes were done in different manners.

Police believe Peart was likely killed late Thursday or early Friday.

Once police entered Peart's home, they found it had been ransacked, and she had been dead for a few days. The car had been seen in front of Peart's home on Thursday, Petersen said.

Friday about 4:30 a.m. Henderson Officer Brandon Brooks tried to stop a driver for a traffic violation after the car pulled into the parking lot of the Centerfold Lounge on Boulder Highway near Warm Springs Road, but the driver sped off, according to a police report.

"The driver ignored my signal for it to stop and then accelerated out of the parking lot cutting off two southbound vehicles," Brooks wrote in the report. "It should be noted that other vehicles on the roadway had to swerve and slam on their brakes in order to avoid striking the vehicle."

The officer pursued the car south on Boulder Highway with his police car's emergency lights on, said Officer Terry Bowler, a Henderson Police spokesman.

When the driver sped up and started running red lights, the officer broke off the pursuit as it got too dangerous, following Henderson Police policy, but continued to follow the car as it ran a red light and sped east on Lake Mead Drive.

Brooks turned off his police lights and siren in an effort to get the driver to slow down, his report says.

He followed the car to the entrance to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, where the driver apparently went around the gates and crashed the car down a 20-foot embankment. He was gone when the officer arrived.

"We started looking for him," Bowler said. "We called for K-9 and a helicopter. We did everything we could to find him."

"We didn't know anything of a murder at the time," Henderson Police Chief Michael Mayberry said. "There was nothing in any computer system that indicated anything was wrong with the car. It had not been reported stolen. The only thing we had was someone driving extremely erratic."

Anyone with information into Peart's slaying is asked to call Metro's homicide unit at 229-3521 or Secret Witness at 385-5555.