By Cassie Tomlin (contact)

Published Mon, Jan 5, 2009 (1:47 p.m.)

Updated Wed, Jan 7, 2009 (11:37 a.m.)

Kahmuhhnatee Eisenhour

A man who admitted to the May 2006 rape and murder of a Boulder City woman will be sentenced next month to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Kahmuhhnatee Eisenhour, 30, was charged in the death of Sharon Sharpe, 51. He pleaded guilty Friday to first-degree kidnapping, sexual assault with use of a deadly weapon and murder with a deadly weapon.

His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 24 before District Judge Donald Mosley. Eisenhour pleaded guilty as part of a deal to avoid the death penalty, Deputy Public Defender Tim O'Brien said.

Just before 2 p.m. May 6, 2006, tourists found Sharpe in the desert near the Hacienda Hotel and Casino, beaten and near death, police said. She had been stabbed and hit with a rock the size of a football. National Park Service rangers tried to revive her, but she died about 3:30 p.m. on the way to University Medical Center.

Sharpe and Eisenhour were seen together early that morning leaving the casino, where he was a guest. A security guard said Sharpe had earlier reported that Eisenhour was following her.

Eisenhour was arrested later in the afternoon and told police the two had consensual sex in the desert. When she asked him to stop, he told police, she tripped and hit her head on a rock.

Eisenhour served prison time after a 1997 attempted sexual assault and burglary in Las Vegas and was arrested in 1988 on sexual offense and assault charges in Flagstaff, Ariz.

O'Brien said Eisenhour, who grew up on an American Indian reservation, had "significant mitigating circumstances from his childhood."

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or cassie.tomlin@hbcpub.com.