Teen suspect in slaying linked to home invasions

Erica D. Johnson

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 | 9:01 a.m.

The 16-year-old boy charged with killing a Las Vegas man in a home-invasion robbery burglarized other homes in the months leading up to the slaying, prosecutors said Thursday.

Information about the previous burglaries is among the evidence that Chief Deputy District Attorneys Jim Sweetin and Giancarlo Pesci believe jurors should hear during the trial of Mark Ford.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure said he would rule Feb. 12 on whether the evidence would be allowed. Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 20.

Ford is charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and home invasion in connection with the Feb. 24, 2003, stabbing death of 56-year-old Vincent Gomes.

Authorities believe Ford broke into the home in the Wellington Park gated community near Grand Canyon Drive and Sahara Avenue intending to rob it, but killed Gomes when he discovered him home. Ford was 15 at the time.

Robert Lewis Jr. testified Thursday that he was helping his parents move into a home in the 1600 block of Warrenville on Feb. 24, 2003, when he noticed a teenage boy who fit Ford's description coming out of a neighbor's back yard.

Lewis said he didn't think anything of the teen initially, but he grew suspicious when he learned that a man had been killed in the neighborhood on the same day. He called police and also told the owner of the home, Timothy Smith, what he saw.

When Smith examined his home, he testified, he discovered the screen on his back door had been slit. Police later determined that Ford's fingerprints were on the screen door.

"The glass sliding door was locked and the screen door was unlocked," Smith said.

And prosecutors said eyewitness testimony and fingerprint evidence links Ford to two other burglaries. It was unclear whether Ford would face charges related to those burglaries.

Ford broke into a home in the same area on Jan. 11, 2003, and discovered a woman home, prosecutors said. The woman told police that Ford admitted "he had entered the house through a window," Pesci said.

Yoo Sun Chang testified through a court-appointed Korean interpreter that someone burglarized her home in the 2500 block of Pyramid Pines Drive about midnight on Nov. 14, 2002, while she and her family were home.

Chang said her barking dog alerted her to a "thumping sound" in one of the bathrooms. When she entered the bathroom, she discovered the window was open and the screen had been removed.

"My mother, who was inside, was telling me there's someone on the roof. She could hear something," Chang said.

Chang's husband, Hang San Chang, said he ran outside with a flashlight to try to catch the prowler. He said he was hiding behind a light pole behind a row of houses when he noticed a figure jump off his roof and into his back yard.

"That person was jumping the fence from my backyard to my neighbor's back yard," he said.

Hang San Chang said he flashed his light on the prowler and recognized the teenage boy as Ford. Ford was a neighbor who had come to his home on several occasions to borrow tools, he said.

"I asked him what he was doing there," Chang said through the interpreter. "He said, 'This is my house. What are you talking about?' I said, 'That's not your house.' "

Chang said Ford then fled through several other neighbors' yards. Police later found the screen from the bathroom on top of the roof. Ford's fingerprints were on the screen.

Also on Thursday, defense attorneys tried to poke holes in the pre-trial testimony of Metro Police detectives in an effort to get several pieces of evidence suppressed before the trial. Bonaventure is expected to rule on that matter also during the Feb. 12 hearing.

During their investigation, detectives confiscated several items of clothing Ford was wearing, including a sweatshirt and a hat. Police say DNA evidence found on the clothing linked Ford to Gomes' killing.

Chief Deputy Public Defender Curtis Brown and Deputy Public Defender Craig Davis said the clothes should not be presented at trial because of the improper way the evidence was gathered.

Brown said detectives did not obtain proper consent from Ford or his mother, Ramune Rodgers, before taking the clothes. Brown said Ford also asked detectives to call his mother at least four times before she was actually called and that police continued to interrogate Ford until she arrived.

Rodgers said she told police they could take her son's clothes, but only after they indicated that she had no choice in the matter.

"I asked them specifically if I had a choice and they said they were gong to get them anyway," she said.