Guilty plea entered in dancer’s death

Erica D. Johnson

Friday, March 14, 2003 | 8:52 a.m.

The man charged in the death of a local entertainer pleaded guilty to murder charges nearly six years after the slaying in a plea deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty.

John Flowers, also known as Craig Jacobson, on Thursday pleaded guilty to first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon in the 1997 killing of Ginger Rios, 20, a local singer and dancer.

Flowers, 32, of Las Vegas pleaded guilty using the Alford plea, in which he admitted prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him.

"Mr. Flowers has readily taken responsibility for the killing," his attorney, deputy public defender Will Ewing, said. Flowers took the deal because the state alleged the murder was premeditated, a claim defense attorneys denied, Ewing said.

Flowers now faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 15 before District Judge Michael Douglas.

Thursday's plea came after years of failed negotiations. Flowers backed out of another plea agreement in 2002, claiming he was mentally ill when he took the deal. Nevada did not have an insanity defense at that time.

This time prosecutors added a stipulation preventing Flowers from later claiming he was insane either at the time he entered the plea or the time of the killing.

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 Tucson.

Still, Flowers' motive for the killing remains a mystery, Chief Deputy District Attorney Ed Kane said.

"While the defendant admitted to the killing, his explanations varied," Kane said.

Flowers told police he struck Rios in the face because he thought she was going to harm his infant child, who was in the bookstore at the time of the killing.

He also mentioned that Rios had criticized the way the child was dressed, Kane said.

Were it not for the plea deal, prosecutors would have argued Flowers' guilt under the felony murder rule, which alleges the murder occurred during a sexual assault, Kane said.

When Rios' body was found, all of her jewelry was intact with the exception of a genital piercing, which she was wearing when she entered the bookstore, he said.

Flowers also allegedly asked detectives if any DNA evidence had been recovered from the body. No DNA was recovered.

With all the state's evidence, "the imposition of death or life without parole would have been a conceivable outcome," Kane said.