Family returns from trip to find dead man

Heather Rawlyk

Monday, June 21, 2004 | 11:19 a.m.

Metro Police this morning were searching for a car missing from the a Northwest Las Vegas home where a slain man was discovered Sunday night.

Around 6:45 p.m. Sunday, Alberto Gomez-Salas, his wife and son returned to their home in the 8200 block of Green Clover Avenue, near Durango Drive and Ann Road, after a weekend vacation in Disneyland, and noticed that one of their vehicles was missing from the home's three-car garage, according to Metro Homicide Lt. Tom Monahan.

Their housesitter's car was still in the garage, but the family's 1999 white Acura was missing, Monahan said.

The family walked upstairs and discovered the body of a man, Monahan said.

The man had been through a "considerable amount of trauma" and there was a significant amount of blood on the floor of the home, Monahan said.

The dead man is believed to be their housesitter, a relative of the family who was in his mid-30's, but police were waiting for the coroner to positively identify the dead man. His name and cause of death had not been released this morning.

Monahan said the housesitter was last seen at work around 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Jan McDermott, who lives next door to the Gomez-Salas family, said she remembers seeing the housesitter at 10 a.m. Saturday.

McDermott said neither she nor her husband heard anything unusual coming from the Gomez-Salas home Saturday night.

The two left their home around 5:45 p.m. Sunday to run errands and returned one hour later to find their home surrounded by crime tape, police cars and news vans, McDermott said.

"It's scary," she said. "We weren't even gone an hour and we pulled in to all of this."

Aaron and Ronda Hawley, who live around the corner, reported to police that they were awakened late Saturday evening by a man who was banging on their door and shouting.

Ronda Hawley said a man at her front door was shouting that there was smoke coming from the side of the house and for the family to get out. Ronda Hawley immediately woke up her husband and checked around the house for smoke, she said.

"But there was no smoke," she said. "There was no smoke at all and with all the home invasions going on, we think it was a lure to get us out of the house.

"It may just be a coincidence," she said. "But we told police anyway."

Metro Police are looking for the missing white 1999 Acura, which bears the Nevada commemorative plates for Missing and Exploited Children MX1666.

Anyone with information about the car or the homicide case can call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555 or the homicide section at 229-3521.