High court upholds conviction of man who killed ex-girlfriend’s dad

Friday, June 10, 2005 | 9:11 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Christopher Fiegehen in the murder of his former girlfriend's father and the attempted murder of the mother.

The court said Thursday that the Douglas County district attorney's office presented "abundant, overwhelming evidence at trial" that Fiegehen fatally stabbed Alan Chorkey and shot Lorelle Chorkey twice in the chest but she survived.

The District Court jury when it returned its verdict did not specify whether it was first- or second-degree murder. The Supreme Court said it had a previous precedent that such a verdict renders a murder conviction fatally defective.

But in this case, the court said, the verdict established the crime as felony murder that is first-degree murder under the law.

Fiegehen, son of Allan Fiegehen, co-owner of the Ormsby House in Carson City and also Eagles Restaurant, was dating Alane Dockstader, the daughter of Lorelle Chorkey. But they broke up a month before, according to court documents, and Fiegehen tried to rekindle the romance. Alane told him on the night before the killing she was dating another man.

Dockstader returned home the next morning to find her mother had been shot and the husband's jugular vein slashed.

Fiegehen fled Nevada and was arrested in Vincennes, Ind. After his conviction, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.