Wednesday, April 30, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.
A Las Vegas father whose daughter was killed and buried in an Arizona desert five years ago received a letter of apology from his daughter's killer on Tuesday.
But after placing a framed photograph of 20-year-old Ginger Rios on the witness stand, George Rios told John Flowers that his letter was too little too late.
"You say you're sorry," he said. "But sorry is not going to bring our daughter back."
Ginger Rios, a dancer and singer, loved performing and had enrolled in acting classes shortly before her 1997 death, her father said.
"She was a beautiful woman," he said. "And her whole life just stopped. Bang. It's gone."
Rios' tearful statement came moments before District Judge Michael Douglas sentenced Flowers to life in prison with parole possible after 20 years.
Flowers, 32, was also ordered to pay the Rios family $3,181.05 in restitution.
The sentence was stipulated as part of a plea deal in which Flowers entered a guilty plea to a single count of murder. By entering into the agreement, Flowers avoided a possible death sentence.
Flowers had intended to read the letter aloud, but he asked prosecutors to give it to the Rios family instead, Deputy Public Defender Will Ewing said.
"When Mr. Flowers arrived to court this morning, he didn't feel comfortable reading it in court," he said.
Though Flowers suffers from mental illness, Ewing said, a recent psychiatric evaluation declared Flowers competent to enter into the agreement.
Flowers had backed out of another plea deal in 2002, claiming he was mentally ill when he agreed to it.
Prosecutors this time added a stipulation preventing Flowers from later claiming he was insane at the time of the killing or when the plea was entered.
Rios vanished on April 4, 1997, after walking into Flowers' Spy Craft bookstore at 3507 S. Maryland Parkway to buy a book, while her husband, Mark Hollinger, waited outside.
Rios never came out of the store. Flowers' wife led police to her body four months later in the desert outside of Tucson.
Though Flowers initially gave police various explanations for the seemingly unmotivated slaying, he maintained in his letter that the killing was accidental.
"It wasn't an accident," George Rios said. "It wasn't like she tripped and hit her head and died in your store. You did something to her. Then you ran like a coward."
Arizona authorities initially believed Flowers could also be responsible for the death of another woman, whose body was found about a quarter of a mile away from Rios'.
The bodies were buried in a similar fashion, said Mike Minter, spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff's office. The second woman remains unidentified.
After an autopsy was performed, a private mortuary company that buries indigents buried the body, and Arizona police are unaware of the site, Minter said. The company has since gone out of business, he said.
Chuck Teegarden, spokesman for the Pinal County attorney's office, said prosecutors reviewed the case two weeks ago, but do not have enough evidence to press charges against Flowers.
"There's no basis for a reasonable likelihood of a conviction," he said. "We don't have enough to make a case against anyone."
George Rios said his family searched all over Las Vegas for his daughter and even consulted a local psychic who said Rios would be found alive in a desert near the Santa Fe hotel.
The family had no idea their worst fears would soon be confirmed.
"My beautiful daughter was buried in an Arizona desert like she was garbage, like she was trash," the father said.
He told Flowers to take a good look at the brown-haired woman in the photograph.
"Look at her real well," he said. "She'll never change. But you will. Ginger Lee Rios. Don't forget her."
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