Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Defense: Blood stains are not enough

A defense attorney delivering opening arguments Thursday said that just because blood stains of a Canadian tourist were found in 32-year-old Greg Chao's room at the Imperial Palace does not mean Chao is a murderer.

Chao, a Canadian citizen, is charged with robbery with use of a deadly weapon and murder with use of a deadly weapon for the December 1997 killing of Donald Idiens at the Imperial Palace.

Deputy Public Defender Tim O'Brien said if detectives would have investigated the case "tenaciously" and not stopped looking for a suspect after DNA tests proved the blood on the rug, wall and dresser of Chao's room belonged to Idiens, perhaps the real killer could have been found.

"This is the real-life story about what happens when the detectives stop asking questions," O'Brien said. "I get it. There were traces of Don's (Idiens) blood. I understand why he (Chao) was an early suspect.

"But after the blood was found the investigation stopped."

O'Brien said that since December 1997 the investigation has revealed "no new evidence, no new witnesses, no new nothing -- just the traces of blood."

The defense attorney offered the jury his theory about why the investigation allegedly stopped.

"In the real world in Las Vegas, a dead tourist found in a Strip hotel is bad for business. Detectives wanted to close this case as soon as possible."

O'Brien said the evidence would show that Chao met Idiens while playing poker with him at the Mirage, which back in 1997 was the only place in town to play high-stakes poker. He said Chao and Idiens had a lot in common, namely that they were both from British Columbia and were serious poker players.

He said Chao agreed to allow Idiens to use his room at the Imperial Palace for a "meeting" on the day of Idiens death, and when Chao returned to his room, Idiens was no where to be found.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Pam Weckerly said Idiens was found lying in a stairwell at the hotel wearing nothing but his underwear and socks with a plastic bag covering his head. Weckerly said the coroner determined Idiens had been beaten about the head, suffered skull fractures and had one ear nearly severed from his head.

Weckerly said a hammer or pipe could have caused the wounds but the only way to know exactly how the murder took place would be "if these walls (of the hotel room) could talk."

Weckerly said aside from Idiens being a father of five who owned a land development company, he was a serious poker player who had come to Las Vegas to visit an old friend, Phil Barber, and get away from a downturn in Canadian real estate.

The prosecutor said Barber will tell the jury that on the evening of the murder Idiens was playing poker at the Mirage when he was paged over the hotel's sound system. Barber said Idiens went to answer the page using a hotel phone, but was disconnected. Weckerly said Idiens received a second page, picked up a house phone and left the Mirage and about $800 worth of poker chips at the table.

She said it was be the last time Barber saw his friend alive.

The prosecutor said security videotape from the Mirage shows Idiens leave and tapes at the Imperial palace show his arrival there. After his entrance, there is no record of anyone else, or any camera, seeing Idiens alive.

Weckerly, however, said there was a record of Greg Chao checking into the Imperial Palace under the fake name of Yan Chang. She alleged Chao ultimately lured Idiens to the Imperial Palace, killed and robbed him in Chao's hotel room before "cleaning up, checking out and catching a flight" out of Las Vegas.

She said evidence will show Chao was $40,000 in debt to "less than savory" individuals, and records from the Mirage show that prior to the time Idiens is believed to have been killed, Chao lost $4,800 playing poker, but after the murder played again using a $5,800 buy-in.

Weckerly said that after extending his stay at the Imperial Palace an extra day, Chao paid for his room in cash and made sure that he went back and used cash to pay for any transaction at the hotel he had already paid for with his credit card.

She said Chao also changed the name on his bill from Yan Chang to Joe Galloway, telling the person who was working the front desk that Galloway was "a business partner who really stayed in the room and he needs the name changed for tax purposes." Weckerly said Chao later told police he made up the story and never indicated why he used two different aliases and not his real name in Las Vegas.

Chao had been on probation for an extortion conviction in Canada when he was arrested in June 2004 in connection with the Idiens case. He was extradited from Canada for the Las Vegas case under the condition that the district attorney's office not follow through with plans to seek the death penalty.

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