Witness describes finding body of mutilated man

Kim Smith

Thursday, May 9, 2002 | 10:05 a.m.

Richard Shott found a lot more than aluminum cans when he went "Dumpster diving" for some extra cash last July.

Shott found the sexually mutilated body of 44-year-old Duran "St. Louis" Bailey, a homeless man who moved to Las Vegas from Missouri in 1997.

Shott was among the first witnesses Wednesday in the murder trial of Kirstin Blaise Lobato, a 19-year-old Panaca resident accused of beating and stabbing Bailey to death on July 8, 2001.

If convicted, Lobato could face a life prison sentence with or without the possibility of parole.

Shott said he was rooting around behind a trash bin near West Flamingo Road when he lifted a cardboard box and saw Bailey's body.

"I said to myself 'I gotta get out of here,' " Shott said. But after an internal debate, he decided to "do the right thing."

Prosecutors say Lobato killed Bailey because he sexually assaulted her, based on statements she made to police after her arrest.

But Deputy Special Public Defender Gloria Navarro told jurors during opening arguments Wednesday that Lobato was attacked by someone else on the opposite side of town and was nowhere near where Bailey died.

One expert will testify that footprints found at the scene are two and a half sizes larger than Lobato's, Navarro said.

"Kirstin Blaise Lobato did not kill Duran Bailey. She had never even been to the parking lot where Duran Bailey was killed until recently, when her attorneys took her there," Navarro said. "She had never even seen Duran Bailey."

Lobato was attacked by a black man, but he was not Bailey and the attack took place over the Memorial Day weekend on the opposite side of town from where Bailey was found, Navarro said.

"She did not have the motive to kill Duran Bailey because he was not the man who attacked her, but Duran Bailey did attack another woman one week before," Navarro said.

Navarro hinted that perhaps the alleged earlier sexual assault by Bailey led to his death.

The alleged victim in that case ended up at the crime scene the night Bailey died, Navarro said. She also later called police to make sure Bailey was the same man she says attacked her.

The police have no eyewitnesses to the crime and no fingerprints or DNA to link Lobato to the crime scene, the defense attorney said.

Deputy District Attorney William Kephart told jurors that the police had virtually no clues in the Bailey case until almost two weeks after the slaying.

A juvenile probation officer in Panaca called Metro detectives wondering if they were investigating any cases in which the victim had been sexually mutilated, Kephart said.

It turned out that Lobato had told a high school teacher and confidante she had severed "an old smelly man's" penis during an attempted sexual assault, Kephart said. The teacher then contacted the probation officer.

Lobato was arrested when an autopsy revealed Bailey was beaten and stabbed to death and then mutilated after he died.

When confronted by the police, "the first thing she did was drop her head, start to cry and say 'I didn't think anyone would miss him,"' Kephart said.

A further investigation revealed Lobato gave the same sexual assault story to numerous friends, which is surprising because she now says she was in Panaca July 8, Kephart said.

The trial was scheduled to continue this morning before District Judge Valorie Vega.