Suspect: Killing was self-defense

Kim Smith

Thursday, May 31, 2001 | 10:32 a.m.

A Las Vegas man who claims he killed a man in self-defense early Monday morning had fought with the victim several hours earlier, a witness has told police.

According to police records, at least one witness says Edward Smith, 35, and Martinique Tillman, 21, got into a verbal altercation about seven hours before Tillman was stabbed to death.

Smith has been charged with murder.

The stabbing happened around 6 a.m. Monday morning at an apartment complex on Sierra Vista Drive near Paradise and Desert Inn roads.

Smith told police that on Sunday evening and again Monday morning he told a group of men sitting in his Lincoln Mark VII to get out of the car, which doesn't run.

It was during the second incident that Tillman was stabbed in the chest.

"(Smith) said the victim, who he knows as 'MT', was sitting in the driver's seat and pulled something out and Smith said what happened happened," Metro Police Officer D. Falvey wrote in his report. "Smith said it was self-defense on his part."

Falvey wrote that later Smith said Tillman grabbed the knife he (Smith) kept on the car's console and he grabbed Tillman's hand.

"Smith could not explain how Tillman got stabbed or what happened to the knife," Falvey wrote.

Tillman, who was stabbed at least six times, made his way to the door of a nearby apartment and collapsed, unable to speak and gasping for breath. He was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later at University Medical Center's Trauma Unit.

One of the witnesses police spoke to claims that Smith pulled the knife on Tillman about 11 p.m. the night before the stabbing and said, "Don't get in my face. When you want to get serious, come back and I'll cut you up."

The police reports indicate that police found blood inside Smith's vehicle, but did not find a knife.

A man sitting next to Tillman in the car said he was drunk and asleep when a bleeding Tillman awakened him, saying, "Get him off me." The man said he never saw Smith.

According to court records, Smith was sentenced to 30 days in the Clark County Detention Center in July 1995 after failing to complete the terms of his probation in a misdemeanor battery case.

Records show Smith pleaded guilty to knocking four of his girlfriend's teeth out after she spoke to his estranged wife in July 1994.

Smith has two California robbery convictions from 1985 and 1986, court records show.

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for June 11.