Family shocked by murder, suicide

Eric Leake

Monday, Jan. 3, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

Relatives struggled Sunday to make sense of the deaths of a pregnant woman and the boyfriend suspected of killing her before setting himself on fire.

"The thing that's crazy is he never threatened her before, he never hit her. This is just out of the blue," said Latasha Turner, whose sister, Latoi Lanier, was shot and killed Sunday morning in what Metro Police say is the first homicide in their jurisdiction this year.

Turner said her sister told her Saturday night that her boyfriend, Gregory Neal, had come to the convenience store where she worked and threatened her. She said he told Lanier to pick up her children from his mother's house, where they stayed over New Year's.

Lanier called her sister from work and said Neal "was over here waiting at my job for me. He said I'd better come pick up the kids because if I don't pick up the kids he's going to come beat me up and break my door down," Turner said.

Turner said Neal broke up with Lanier over the Christmas holiday, but she said her sister told her "every time she got pregnant he started acting funny."

Police said dispatchers received an anonymous call about 7 a.m. from a caller who said a person had been killed inside an apartment in the Bill Rayson Manor complex on Sandhill Road near Owens Avenue. Officers found Lanier, 22, dead inside.

About 40 minutes later a person driving along Lake Mead Boulevard roughly six miles east of Hollywood Boulevard saw a car in the desert engulfed in flames. A man was found dead inside. Detectives believe that man was Neal, 22. They said they believe he killed Lanier, then drove to the deserted area to kill himself.

Investigators said they were still working late Sunday to positively identify the man in the car.

But Gwen Rhodes, Neal's mother, collapsed among relatives when she was told of the body burned in a car that she recognized as hers.

"Lord, give me strength, that's my son," she said, holding on to family huddled around her.

Rhodes and Neal's brother and sister went to the apartment complex where Neal and Lanier lived, looking for information. They had been waiting for Neal at a family dinner. He never showed. It was left to reporters to tell the family what they knew.

"I thought they (the couple) were all right," Rhodes said. "I didn't expect nothing like this to happen."

She said her son was a good man who went out of his way to help people.

"He probably regretted doing what he did and he figured this was his only way out of it. He'd killed her and he figured he'd just do himself in, too," she said later Sunday evening in a telephone interview.

The couple had an 11-month-old child, and Lanier was three months pregnant, Turner said. Lanier had a 5-year-old child from a previous relationship.

Rhodes had been looking after the children since New Year's Eve.

After the deaths, the children were taken by Child Protective Services.

The last time Rhodes saw her son was when he left about 6 a.m. Sunday to pick up Lanier from work.

Rhodes said the couple had been together for more than five years and she didn't know what led to the breakup.

Turner said Neal was upset that Lanier had taken a ride home from work with a man a few times.

"I guess now he got it in his head that she was cheating on him," she said. "I can't believe he would do that."

Turner talked to her sister every night, she said, and described a woman who worked hard to care for her children. She said Lanier was moving to a new apartment and was hopeful for the new year.

Turner said she had talked with her sister just the night before about the new year and Lanier's deteriorating relationship with Neal.

"She said I don't want a boyfriend, I want to start over fresh, this is a new year," Turner said. "We weren't expecting this."