Prosecutors assigned in case of elderly woman’s slaying

Kim Smith

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 9:32 a.m.

Attorneys specially trained to handle death penalty cases were assigned Wednesday to the case of a 29-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting and killing an elderly woman last year.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas asked District Judge Gene Porter to appoint the attorneys to the Glenn Mundo case because he is preparing to take the case to a grand jury.

Mundo had already been assigned attorneys in Las Vegas Justice Court, but because prosecutors may seek the death penalty against Mundo, they wanted attorneys assigned in District Court as early as possible.

Mundo, who is already serving a 12- to 32-month prison sentence for violating probation in a robbery case, was charged in May with the sexual assault and murder of Virginia Peart.

The 84-year-old woman's son found her body on the floor of her home near Owens Avenue and Nellis Boulevard on June 25. An autopsy showed she had been asphyxiated.

According to police records, Mundo's fingerprint was inside the neck of a broken beer bottle that was found on a living room chair. A dark hair found on the victim's chest and a sample of Mundo's hair were submitted for DNA testing and a match could not be ruled out, reports show.

Mundo told police he strangled and raped Peart when she woke up while he was burglarizing her home, according to the police report. He used the broken beer bottle to cut the screen on her front window to gain access to her home

Because Mundo's preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 5, a grand jury must indict him prior to that time. If indicted, he would be arraigned in District Court within two weeks.