Prisoner may be linked to local crimes

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 | 11:20 a.m.

A man being held in Elmira, N.Y., may be the key to helping police solve shootings in Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and other cities across the country, officials said.

District Attorney David Roger is working to extradite Robert Neil Davis, 39, who bragged about slayings to police in Washington, D.C., and New York, officials said Tuesday.

Based on his statements, police believe Davis may be responsible for a North Las Vegas homicide, a Las Vegas shooting in which the victim survived and several cases in other areas in which homeless people were shot, North Las Vegas Police spokesman Justin Roberts said.

On Tuesday a warrant was issued charging Davis with the July 5, 1998, murder of a homeless man, Billy Ray Owen, in North Las Vegas. Owen was asleep by the railroad tracks near Owens Avenue when he was shot three times in the back.

"This guy simply walked up to him and shot him. This was a cold case," Roberts said. "There were no leads."

In 1998 Davis hopped a bus in Los Angeles bound for Las Vegas to get away from a warrant charging him with a drug offense. Davis, who was homeless when the crimes were committed, joined other homeless people who slept near railroad tracks in North Las Vegas.

Police allege he shot and wounded a homeless man in June 1998 in Las Vegas, then shot and killed Owen about a month later. After that he jumped back on a bus and drifted through various places including Los Angeles, Arizona and Mississippi.

Davis ended up in Washington, D.C., where he turned himself into police, saying he had shot someone in Elmira, N.Y., Roberts said.

"At the time of his arrest he had no money, he had no bullets left, so he turned himself in," Roberts said.

While Davis was in Washington, he started bragging about the shootings, describing "an insatiable urge to murder," Roberts said.

Washington police contacted Elmira officials, and he was extradited there.

He is serving time in prison on attempted murder in that shooting, Roberts said, but he also told police that he shot people in North Las Vegas and Las Vegas.

In February two North Las Vegas detectives went to New York to interview Davis. He was in a psychiatric center at the time, undergoing an evaluation. He has since been transferred back to prison.

"He confessed to the shooting," Roberts said. "He drew maps and gave details that nobody else would know."

Roberts said Davis told others that if he had to go to prison, he wanted to be on Death Row. "He had talked to other people about what to do to get the death penalty," Roberts said. Apparently the multiple shootings were an attempt to ensure that goal, he said.

The North Las Vegas Police Department has a gun that Davis turned over to police, which is going through forensics. An autopsy done on Owen after his death and other evidence collected at the time will help establish a connection, Roberts said.

The non-fatal shooting of a homeless man in Las Vegas in June 1998 is also under investigation, as well as unsolved murders in New York and Washington, D.C., officials said.

The homeless have been victims of violent crime in Southern Nevada, according to one study.

A study released in April 2003 by the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless said Las Vegas was the second most dangerous city nationwide for homeless people. Denver was ranked the most dangerous.

The study said that 13 violent crimes against homeless people had occurred in Las Vegas from 1999 to 2002.

Sheriff Bill Young and Las Vegas city officials disagreed with the study, noting that the review of crimes in 98 cities looked at crimes committed against the homeless by people who are not homeless.

Staff writer Jen Lawson contributed to this story.