Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2003 | 11:30 a.m.
Applebee's International this morning offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever killed one of the company's managers at a Henderson restaurant.
Thomas B. Farrell, 45, was found dead inside the Applebee's Bar & Grill at 699 N. Stephanie Street early Monday. Farrell, an Applebee's employee, apparently had been killed sometime after the restaurant closed Sunday night, police said.
About 40 of his co-workers attended a counseling session Monday afternoon. Many of them appeared distraught and were crying as they left the session. The restaurant remained closed today.
Police were called to the restaurant by a day-shift manager who found Farrell at about 5:30 a.m. Monday. Police have not said how Farrell was killed or whether it appeared to be connected to a robbery.
Police had Farrell's car towed away from the restaurant Monday morning so that they could check it for clues.
Farrell's schedule rotated from day to night shifts, said one of his prep cooks at the restaurant, Dempsey Strunk. Farrell was in charge of the scheduling of the restaurant's servers and hostesses, Strunk said.
Strunk said managers and employees usually leave the restaurant together when the restaurant closes at 10 p.m. daily. The restaurant opens at 11 a.m. Strunk also said that the restaurant's inventory is usually done Monday mornings.
Strunk, who has worked at the restaurant for more than a year, said he was sad and shocked by the situation. Strunk had opened the restaurant with Farrell a couple of times and said he was a laid-back boss.
"He was very funny. He would help you if needed it. He never got angry or upset and he worked well employees," Strunk said.
Strunk said he didn't think the Henderson resident had any enemies.
Strunk is off Sundays and Mondays. But he came to the Whitney Ranch Shopping Center where the restaurant is located Monday morning to get his hair cut. When the hair salon employees informed him a crime had occurred at the restaurant, Strunk noticed the police tape and cars.
Rickey Fuller, a Las Vegas resident for 52 years, said she was shocked by the slaying because she and her husband go to the restaurant for lunch "all the time." Monday, she had to call her sister to warn her not to meet her at Applebee's.
Sue Nyman, a 42-year resident of Henderson, said the neighborhood surrounding the Applebee's restaurant is usually a quiet one.
"It is more of a family place," Nyman said.
She and her friend, Jim Milligan, a Las Vegas valley resident for 20 years, often eat lunch at the restaurant.
Milligan recalled that two killings took place in the parking lot of the Ross Dress for Less store in the same shopping center in March 2000. In that case two armored car employees were killed outside the store. Jose Vigoa is serving a life sentence for that crime and other robberies.
"We thought that was tragic," Milligan said.
Farrell's death was the third homicide in two weeks in Henderson and the second case for which a killer or killers apparently remained at large this morning.
On Thursday morning Stephanie Roy , 50, was found shot to death in a car in the parking lot of the South Valley Ranch apartments near Boulder Highway at Sunset Road. As of Tuesday morning, police had not announced any arrests in connection with either Roy's killing or the Applebee's case.
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