New trial allowed in killing of Rios

Kim Smith

Wednesday, May 22, 2002 | 9:30 a.m.

A Las Vegas man serving a life sentence for murder in the slaying of a young bride in 1997 will get a new trial.

John Flowers, 31, will be allowed to back out of his plea agreement and claim he was insane when he killed Ginger Rios, District Judge Michael Douglas ruled Tuesday.

Flowers argued last month that he should be able to back out of his deal because the Nevada Supreme Court recently reinstated the insanity defense and abolished the guilty, but mentally ill, statute under which he pleaded in April 2000.

Flowers said he had always wanted to tell a jury he was insane when he killed Ginger Rios, but hadn't been allowed to.

Flowers' new trial date will be set Thursday, when the public defender's office is re-appointed to the case, Kane said.

Rios, a singer and dancer, disappeared after walking into Flowers' Spy Craft bookstore on April 4, 1997, to buy a book on improving credit reports. Her husband of five months, Mark Hollinger, waited outside for her, but she never came out.

Four months later Flowers' wife led police to Rios' body in the desert outside Tucson. She told police her husband told her he killed Rios after she "got in his face."