Georgia traffic stop nets LV fugitive

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 | 9:34 a.m.

Devi Ives was found strangled and buried in a shallow grave in the desert outside Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1997.

Within a few months police issued a warrant for the arrest of her boyfriend, Eugene Anthony Linder, a limo driver, club promoter, aspiring entertainer and member of the entourage of welterweight boxing champion Thomas "The Hitman" Hearns in Detroit in the 1980s.

Linder was on Metro Police's most wanted fugitive list for years and was featured on "America's Most Wanted."

But it was a minor traffic violation in Georgia that resulted in 48-year-old Linder's recent arrest.

He was extradited back to Nevada on Saturday and booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a murder charge. He is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

"The first thing I think of whenever an arrest is made in a homicide is what a relief it will be for the victim's family," Lt. Tom Monahan, head of Metro's homicide section, said Monday.

Ives, 34, had been missing for five days before target shooters found her body wrapped in black plastic garbage bags and partially covered with dirt in the desert off State Route 168 outside of Moapa, about 50 miles north of Las Vegas.

An autopsy showed she had been strangled, according to Linder's arrest warrant.

Police received a tip that Linder, who began dating Ives a few weeks earlier after meeting her at a beauty salon, had strangled her at his home in the 2600 block of Mason Avenue near Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard and buried her in the desert, his arrest paperwork says.

The informant alleged that Linder drove Ives' body into the desert in his gold 1986 BMW, which was found a few months later at a downtown Las Vegas repair shop.

Police said a gold paint chip and scrape of gold paint on a rock at the murder scene matched the paint on the BMW and a piece of black plastic matched the car's front spoiler support bracket.

A warrant for Linder's arrest was issued Feb. 13, 1998, and he was later added to Metro's list of most wanted fugitives.

Linder was associated with Hearns in the 1980s, then moved to Los Angeles where he tried to break into the entertainment business, police said.

He settled in Las Vegas in 1995 and worked as a limo driver and club promoter, police said. After Ives' murder, police said they thought he returned to Detroit to hide. He was featured on "America's Most Wanted" in 1998.

Last month Linder was a passenger in a car outside Atlanta when the driver was pulled over for a minor traffic violation.

The driver of the car had a suspended license, and when the officer asked Linder for his identification, he handed over a fake California license and Social Security card, police said.

Police arrested Linder for providing false information to police after running a check on the name he gave. At the jail, police checked Linder's fingerprints and discovered he was wanted for murder in Nevada.

He was held in Georgia until Saturday, when he was extradited to Las Vegas to face the murder charge.