Stabbings suspects returned to Nevada

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003 | 11:20 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

The two suspects in the Mesquite child stabbings are on their way back to Nevada today, Utah officials said this morning.

Beau Maestas, 19, had been fighting extradition from Utah to Nevada to face capital murder and attempted murder charges in connection with the stabbing that killed Kristyanna Cowan, 3, and paralyzed her 10-year-old sister, Brittney Bergeron.

This morning, a Utah judge ordered Beau Maestas to be returned to Nevada. Nevada law enforcement officials were on their way to Utah to pick him up, Juab County Attorney Jared Eldridge said.

Beau Maestas' sister Monique, 16, did not fight extradition and she will be returning to Nevada with her brother.

"It didn't make sense to keep fighting extradition," Randy Kester, lawyer for Beau Santino Maestas, 19, said after waiving further proceedings before Juab County Judge Donald J. Eyre Jr. in Nephi, Utah.

Beau Maestas said nothing during the brief court appearance.

"They're on their way to Las Vegas," Deputy Mesquite Police Chief Joe Szalay said after the teens were turned over to Mesquite police for the 5 1/2-hour trip to the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas. They were expected to arrive Thursday afternoon.

An initial court appearance could be Friday in Las Vegas instead of Mesquite, said Kathy Karstedt, aide to Clark County District Attorney David Roger.

Roger has said he may seek the death penalty in the Jan. 22 attack that killed 3-year-old Kristyanna Cowan and left her sister, 10-year-old Brittney Bergeron, paralyzed from the waist down.

Beau Maestas has told police the attack came in retaliation for a drug deal rip-off involving the girls' mother, Tamara Bergeron, and her boyfriend, Robert Schmidt.

Maestas told police Schmidt sold him $125 worth of a substance he believed to be methamphetamine, but that turned out to be table salt.

Police in Mesquite, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, have released security videotape from the CasaBlanca hotel-casino showing an encounter between the teens and the girls' mother, in the casino, minutes before the children were attacked in the recreational vehicle trailer outside.

Bergeron and Schmidt have denied the encounter had anything to do with drugs.

Beau and Monique Maestas were arrested a few hours after the attack on Interstate 15, about 260 miles northeast of Mesquite, a fast-growing town near the Nevada, Arizona and Utah state lines. A third teen in the car, Sabrina Bantam, 18, of Salt Lake City, was questioned but not charged.

Kester of Springville, Utah, said Thursday that Maestas family, in Salt Lake City, was bracing for a long court fight in Las Vegas.

"This is going to be an expensive case to prepare and try," Kester told The Associated Press. "This gives him time to prepare his defense."

Kester also described Beau Maestas as depressed by the charges against him.

"Imagine being a 19-year-old being charged with murder and facing the death penalty for crimes including a 3-year-old girl killed," Kester said. "He keeps telling me he wishes he could wake up from this nightmare."

Kristyanna is due to be buried Saturday in Beaumont, Calif., in a private family ceremony. Two previous funerals were postponed during three weeks of custody battles between her divorced parents.

Clark County authorities have been awarded custody of Brittney, who is recovering at a southern Nevada rehabilitation center.