Police arrest man in connection with slaying

Tuesday, April 22, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

Metro Police homicide detectives arrested a man Monday on charges of killing a woman whose body was found Sunday in a dry wash near Boulder City.

Armando Benavides Cortinas Jr., 23, was charged with murder and robbery with a deadly weapon after admitting to patrol officers that he was responsible for killing someone a week earlier, Metro Police said.

Patrol officers were called to the 1000 block of Sweeney Avenue, near Charleston and Las Vegas boulevards, shortly before 6 a.m. by a man who said his brother was threatening family members with a knife. When officers arrived, Cortinas told them about the homicide, Lt. Tom Monahan said.

Based on the information Cortinas provided, officers determined he was talking about a woman found in the wash Sunday morning by ATV riders, Monahan said.

Police are asking the public's help in identifying the victim. She went by the name Catherine, and Cortinas told police he met her through a personal ad in the Village Voice newspaper. Upon meeting, they set a price for an act of prostitution, he told police.

After the woman was dead, police allege, Cortinas used her car then abandoned it. It is described as a late '80s four-door Honda Accord, grayish-tan with Washington state plates. The car might have been abandoned and burned somewhere in North Las Vegas, Monahan said.

The victim is described as a white woman between the ages of 18 and 35, 5-foot-6 and 135 pounds with blond hair. The tops of her ears were pierced and she had professionally done fingernails and toenails. Her fingernails had red tips with gold streaks and she had a French pedicure. She had a silver toe ring on the middle toe of her left foot.

Anyone with information on her identity is asked to call the homicide section at 229-3521.