LV boy, 12, recalls stabbing attack

Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 | 11:22 a.m.

Twelve-year-old Shiloh Edsitty soon will board a plane with his guardian for upstate New York and a future thousands of miles from where his life nearly ended following a Nov. 8 knife-wielding attack that killed his mother.

Shiloh says that if prosecutors need him, he will return to a Las Vegas courtroom and point at the man he says killed his mother, 31-year-old Teresa Tilden, and stabbed him six times with a 10-inch butcher knife that was left protruding from his chest.

"I don't want to go to court, but I will because of what he did to my mom," Shiloh said Thursday, a day after being discharged from the University Medical Center where he was treated for not only the serious chest wound but also for a severed liver, carotid artery and intestine. He lost his gallbladder.

"It is a miracle he is alive," said Vivian Powell, a professor at St. Bonaventure University who received temporary guardianship of Shiloh from Clark County Family Court on Wednesday.

At the Las Vegas Ronald McDonald House, where Shiloh and Powell are staying, Shiloh met with news reporters throughout the day Thursday to share the horrific ordeal that occurred on that dark, cold, rainy night.

"My mom woke me up because James was angry and started throwing stuff," Shiloh said, noting that he, his mother and an adult male roommate were the only ones in the apartment at the time. "She told me she was not afraid of him even though he had grabbed a knife.

"She pushed him to the ground and he grabbed her."

The next thing Shiloh said he remembered was him struggling to get to his feet and running out into the darkness in the middle of a rainstorm.

Shiloh said he fell to the ground and asked a man to help his mother who was inside the apartment.

While en route to the hospital, Shiloh told authorities the name of the attacker.

A short time later, police arrested James Menor Valdez, 29, and charged him with murder, attempt murdered and assault with a deadly weapon.

Valdez is being held in the Clark County Detention Center without bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Dec. 21 in Justice Court No. 3.

Shiloh says he does not believe he will have any trouble adjusting to his new life because he lived with Powell for three years in upstate New York and she actually has been his "mom" nearly all of his life.

Shiloh, who is part Navaho and part Cheyenne Indian, was born in St. George, Utah, where Teresa Tilden attended a private school for American Indians. Powell was her teacher.

Powell said Tilden approached her when Shiloh was five months old, said she was having difficulty dealing with the pressures of single motherhood and asked Powell to care for baby Shiloh for just two weeks.

"Those two weeks turned into 9 1/2 years," said Powell, who must return to Las Vegas in January for a final custody hearing, where a challenge from Shiloh's blood relatives is a probability.

Two years ago, Shiloh asked Powell to allow him to return to his birth mother to "get to know her" -- a decision he said he does not regret even though it ended with this.

"I told my mother that she had to get her act together because I was coming to stay with her," said the seventh grader who attended Jack Schofield Middle School until the slaying. "It was difficult to get to know my mother. She was a very private person.

"I believe in fate. I think everything has its ups and downs. Now I am on a down. But I will climb and one day be up."

Powell said one of Shiloh's glowing qualities is that he "is a very positive person" -- a factor Shiloh said helped get him through a three-week hospital stay that included undergoing surgeries, taking "nasty medicine," playing outdated video games in the pediatrics playroom and eating "awful food."

Still, Shiloh said, he is grateful to the staff at the University Medical Center because "they saved my life."

Shiloh also was surprised to learn that the people of Las Vegas cared enough about him to send cards, well-wishes and money to help him.

Susan Klein-Rothschild, director of Clark County Department of Family Services, said nearly $5,800 has been raised communitywide to help Shiloh get on with his life.

Klein-Rothschild said immediately after the stabbing her agency received numerous calls from concerned Las Vegans asking how they could help Shiloh.

She contacted the Children's Service Guild, a nonprofit organization that assists with the finances of children who are sent to Child Haven, a temporary campus for abused, neglected and abandoned children, and that group set up an account for Shiloh.

"Holy moley," Shiloh said, his eyes widening over learning the extent of the public's generosity.

"I had no idea. I came to Las Vegas because my mother was living here. I didn't want to live here. But I made friends here and I am thankful to the people of Las Vegas. I want Las Vegas to know that."

Powell, tears welling in her eyes, said she had no idea the fund that was set up for Shiloh had collected so much money.

"We are so grateful for the love, generosity and kindness that the people of Las Vegas have shown Shiloh," said Powell, a mother of eight grown children, who plans to raise Shiloh with her husband, Bo, an educator currently studying for his masters degree in history.

"We are still reading all of the cards Shiloh has received."

As for a potential custody fight over him, Shiloh said that while he loves his aunt, Victoria Tilden, who also stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for several weeks, and other blood relatives, he says he believes he belongs with Powell.

Attempts to reach Tilden for comment on Shiloh's custody issue were not successful. A man answering her cell phone said she was in Arizona this week. Messages left for her were not returned.

Teresa Tilden's former employer, Jennifer Le, owner of Lexus Hair and Nails on Warm Springs Road, said she can understand why there would be a fight over the right to raise Shiloh because he is so endearing.

"I love Shiloh like a son," said Le, a single mother of three who days before the slaying told Teresa and Shiloh they could move in with her. "I understood her situation because I know how tough being a single mother can be."

Because of Shiloh's fragile condition the last three weeks, would-be visitors, including the principal, teachers and classmates from Schofield Middle School, were not permitted to see him at the hospital.

Immediately after learning that Shiloh was injured, students began working on hand-made get well cards, activity books and colorful banners that they had hoped would cheer up the sixth grader, Schofield Principal Betsy Angelcor said.

"He is a tough little guy -- so friendly and outgoing," Angelcor said.

Shiloh said he would try to visit his classmates before leaving for New York.

When Powell was asked how she planned to help Shiloh deal with psychological wounds related to Shiloh viewing his mother's slaying, Shiloh piped up: "I don't want any help.

"All that is is just sharing your feelings," he said, indicating he had no difficulty doing that. "I can handle it."

Powell said Shiloh has blocked out some of what happened, which Child Protective Services workers told her was normal for such traumatic experiences.

"We will deal with those issues as we need to," Powell said.

After being discharged Wednesday from the hospital, Shiloh asked Powell to take him to his favorite restaurant, Verrazano Pizza on Windmill Lane, for "some real food."

After that, he returned to his former home in the Camden Tiara apartments in the 2100 block of Warm Springs Road to pack his belongings and help pack up his mother's stuff, which Shiloh said was a difficult experience.

"I want to give my mother's clothing, furniture and stuff to charity," Shiloh said, noting that he and Powell will offer it to Shade Tree, a shelter for battered women.

Asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Shiloh said, "I want to have a job that is something very unusual. I want to be something very different than anyone else."

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