Police try to link suspect with two Las Vegas killings

Jen Lawson

Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

Metro Police say they are investigating whether a man charged with killing a 25-year-old woman earlier this month also was responsible for the death of a man he lived with.

This week police publicly asked two people who also lived at victim James Stone's house to come forward and tell them what they know about suspect Sean Sales and the shotgun murder of James Stone on Nov. 7.

The roommates, Javan "Q-Tip" Melton and a woman named Rita, contacted police Wednesday but did not give detectives enough useful information for them to charge Sales with Stone's murder, Metro Homicide Lt. Tom Monahan said this morning.

However, he said, detectives are continuing to gather evidence against Sales and a second murder charge against Sales could be forthcoming.

Stone, 41, was found shot dead in his home on Buffalo Drive near Grand Teton Drive.

Sales, 25, was arrested by police on the same day that Stone was found, but not for Stone's death. Instead, Sales had been wanted in connection with the Nov. 4 shotgun slaying of Andrea "Andi" Hicks at a house in the 5300 block of Images Court near Decatur Boulevard and Meadows Lane.

Hours before Sales was arrested, police said he carjacked a man in a cemetery and led police on a 15-minute chase that reached 70 mph.

He crashed the stolen Jeep Cherokee through a fence at Carl Elementary School at Torrey Pines Drive and Ann Road and police lost sight of the car on a nearby residential road, officers said.

Sales abandoned the Jeep, approached a man who had just pulled into his driveway near Ann Road and Decatur Boulevard and stole the keys to his 2005 Mercury Sable, police said.

Moments later Sales allegedly pulled up to a nearby house and let himself in through the sliding glass door. Police said he stole keys to a Porsche and a cell phone from a purse in the kitchen, then went outside and told the car owner he was stealing her car.

Police were called and the woman managed to persuade Sales into giving back her keys and cell phone and the keys to the Porsche.

She told police that Sales told her, "I killed some people today," the police report says.

Officers arrived and after a brief struggle took him into custody on a warrant for the murder of Hendricks. Sales was also charged on several counts of robbery.