January second-deadliest month in LV history: Latest charge places slayings at 20

Keith Paul

Thursday, March 15, 2001 | 11:30 a.m.

An investigation into the January death of a young girl ended with her stepmother being charged with murder, raising the number of slayings for the first month of the year to 20 -- the second-highest single-month total in Las Vegas Valley history.

Martha Flores, 26, was held in the Clark County jail this morning on murder by child abuse charges after Metro Police arrested her Tuesday. She is accused in the Jan. 28 slaying of 5-year-old Zoraida Flores, said Lt. Wayne Petersen of Metro's homicide unit.

The girl's slaying moved January 2001 into a tie with September 1997 for the second-most deadly single month in Metro history. The record for slayings in a month is 24 in July 1997.

Detectives had been investigating the death of Zoraida Flores since Jan. 28, when paramedics were called to her home in the 3900 block of Algonquin Drive, near Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway, and rushed her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

An autopsy determined she died from a blow on the head, Clark County coroner's officials said.

"Child abuse cases are tougher than other cases that we deal with that have gunshot wounds, knife wounds or ligature strangulations," Petersen said. "Oftentimes children get bruises or other injuries. And because children often do get banged up from doing kid stuff, we have to separate those injuries from those that are indicative of child abuse."

The deadly month of January came on the heels of 2000, which went into the books as the first year since 1990 when there were less than 100 homicides in Metro's jurisdiction.

Only 73 days into 2001 the 33 recorded slayings constitute about a third of last year's total of 95.

The 20 slayings in January were followed by 10 in February and three so far this month.

"January was a busy month, but thank goodness it has slowed down," Petersen said. "It just shows that January may have been a bit of an anomaly and certainly not typical."

Statistically, the number of slayings in one month won't show any accurate predictions for the rest of the year, Alfred Blumstein, a criminology professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said at the end of January.

Blumstein said Las Vegas could have months in the rest of year with very few homicides. He said unless there was something connecting the slayings, there was little one month -- even one with a large number of killings -- could show.

There have been some commonalities among some of this year's slayings. Last year the number of domestic or family violence homicides dropped, but this year eight of the 33 slayings so far were contributed to domestic violence.

This month's three slayings have potential ties to gang violence in the area of Martin Luther King Boulevard between Carey Avenue and Lake Mead Boulevard.

Police have targeted domestic violence, gang violence and drug-related violence through programs and specialized units. The gang unit, along with patrol officers, have stepped up patrols in the area.

Several slayings during January were the result of two people getting into an argument that continued to escalate until one of the people was dead.

"There is nothing we can do if someone loses their temper and it escalates from there," Petersen said. "Where we are going to have some impact is on the domestic violence and gang violence."

About half of the homicides this year have been solved.

"An unsolved homicide is never closed," Petersen said.