Police record one of deadliest months

Keith Paul

Wednesday, May 8, 2002 | 11:01 a.m.

The month of April, which brought dubious attention to Southern Nevada with a massive search for double-murder suspect Timmy Weber and a deadly motorcycle gang brawl, was one of the deadliest months in Metro Police history.

There were 19 homicides in Metro's jurisdiction in April, marking the third highest monthly total in the department's history.

"While each case concerns us greatly, the fact is we have had 19 or even greater numbers in the past," Lt. Tom Monahan of Metro's homicide unit said. "We don't like it, but there is no obvious way to reduce these numbers."

The most homicides, 24, were recorded in July 1997. Twenty homicides occurred in September 1997 and January 2001, and June 1999 tied last month, with 19 slayings.

Five of the slayings occurred in two high-profile cases: the April 4 killing of Weber's girlfriend and her 15-year-old son, and the April 27 shooting and stabbing deaths of three bikers during a brawl in Laughlin between the Hells Angels and Mongols motorcycle gangs.

Weber was arrested April 28 in the slaying of Kim and Anthony Gautier. Calvin Schaefer faces charges in the Laughlin deaths, but police say they are still investigating and more arrests could follow.

Monahan and others said there is no way of predicting how many slayings will occur in a month. For example, there were four homicides in November last year, compared with the 20 in January.

"One month of homicides doesn't hold any expectations for what the remainder of the year holds for us," Richard McCorkle, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas criminal justice professor, said.

However, April has been particularly gruesome, with body parts of a dismembered man found in a suitcase in a trash bin, two men found dead on the side of the road with their hands bound and a man found shot to death in the rear seat of a car with his hands bound.

Reports of violence, even repeated reports of the same event, such as the search for Weber, can cause residents' fear of crime to increase -- even when the fear is not founded, the professor said.

The fear can lead people to stay in their homes more and stay away from crowded areas, he said.

"Absent of domestic violence, the chances for a person who lives a normal law- abiding life being the victim of a homicide are relatively small," McCorkle said. "The victims of homicides tend to look a great deal like the perpetrators. People who are dealing with drugs, in gangs or engaging in some risky behavior."

Criminologists have been studying violence for decades, and while various reasons are given for an upswing or decrease in slayings or other violent crime, McCorkle said the answer can't be pinned down.

While little may be concluded from one month of slayings, in 2001 Metro posted its first increase in homicides in five years. Last year there were 138 slayings, compared with 2000 when there were 95 -- the first time in a decade there had been fewer than 100 homicides in Metro's jurisdiction. Metro polices the city of Las Vegas and unincorporated parts of Clark County, an area roughly the size of New Jersey.

Despite the increase in workload, Monahan said detectives are still investigating each case.

"There were a lot of murders in April. Did our investigations take a back seat? No," Monahan said. "The detectives are putting in the work on the cases. What is being sacrificed is their free time."