Fatal Thanksgiving Day shooting case bound to district court

By Cara McCoy

Friday, March 26, 2010 | 1:46 p.m.

A 20-year-old man accused in the Thanksgiving Day shooting death of another man in a northwest Las Vegas pharmacy parking lot will answer to the charges against him in district court.

The case against Lionel B. Collins III was bound to district court after a preliminary hearing Friday in front of Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Eric Goodman.

Collins is facing charges of murder, robbery and burglary, all with a deadly weapon, as well as charges of discharging a firearm into a structure and carrying a concealed weapon.

He is set to be arraigned April 6.

The shooting stemmed from a drug-related dispute on Nov. 26, 2009, in the parking lot of CVS pharmacy, 7190 W. Craig Road, at the intersection of Tenaya Way.

McClain Kenton Zornes, 19, of Las Vegas, died from a gunshot wound after trying to leave the scene in his car, which struck a curb and a tree before flipping over.

A man who was a passenger in Zornes’ car testified Friday that Zornes had plans to meet a man who had asked to buy one ounce of marijuana.

The passenger exited the vehicle so a man identified as Collins could enter for the drug transaction. The witness said Zornes and Collins started scuffling in the car, and that he helped by grabbing Collins by the hair and pulling him into the parking lot. He then jumped back in the car and they began to drive away. That’s when Collins fired at the car, he said.

He tried to stop his friend’s bleeding by putting pressure on his wound until paramedics arrived, he said.

Prosecutors said that during the altercation, Collins took a bag of marijuana without paying for it.

Collins was arrested the day after the shooting. He is being held in the Clark County Detention Center on $1 million bail. Detention center records also show he was sentenced to jail time Dec. 18, 2009, in a separate case on charges of assault and harassment.