Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Police: Woman, 21, robbed store before fatally shooting cabdriver

Cab driver

Autumn Dawn Murry and Felicia Mosley.

Photos released by police on March 4

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A 21-year-old woman accused of fatally shooting a North Las Vegas cabdriver is also facing robbery charges after police say surveillance video allegedly shows her robbing a convenience store an hour before the murder.

Autumn Dawn Murry was arrested Friday in connection with the March 4 shooting of Tesfaye Arze, 30, who was found dead on High Sierra Avenue near his taxi in the northeast valley.

A criminal complaint released Monday indicated Murry was a U.S. Army police officer based at Fort Polk, La., with family in Las Vegas. She was discharged from the U.S. Army on Dec. 14, 2010, military officials said Tuesday.

Murry was booked into the Clark County Detention Center Friday on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon and two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon.

According to the complaint, Murry is accused of robbing a Mini Mart, 4563 E. Russell Road, shortly before 2:30 a.m. on March 4. Arze was shot about 3:30 a.m. that same morning, police said.

According to the report, two witnesses of the shooting were in the area of High Sierra Avenue and Virgo Drive trying to steal copper wire when they saw a taxi that was stopped. They told police they saw two people standing near the taxi, heard three gunshots and saw one person fall to the ground.

After viewing surveillance video from the taxi, police received an anonymous tip that indicated two women were involved in the shooting and police identified Murry as a suspect. Police are still searching for the woman who was apparently with Murry, identified by police as 18-year-old Felicia Mosely.

“Surveillance video from a residence across the street from the scene also shows a suspect leaning over the body of Arze possibly going through his pockets,” police wrote in the report.

The coroner ruled Arze died of a gunshot wound to the head.

On March 10, police learned the Mini Mart had been robbed at gunpoint six days earlier and $500 was taken. The clerk identified Murry as the alleged robber.

Also on March 10, police obtained surveillance video that authorities say shows Arze’s cab leaving the Sam’s Town casino at 3:12 a.m. March 4 after Murry and another person entered the cab. Sam’s Town is about three miles from the Mini Mart that had been robbed about 40 minutes earlier, the report said.

After interviewing members of Murry’s family, police learned she was a police officer in the U.S. Army and had returned from Fort Polk in December 2010. In January, she got into a fight with her older sister and left home, police said.

Police interviewed Murry’s sister, who told detectives that Murry had arrived at her house wearing a wig with a woman she knew only as “Droopy.” Murry’s sister drove her to a Greyhound bus station to buy a ticket to leave town, according to the report.

When police searched Murry’s apartment early Friday morning they found two bus tickets to Denver, Colo., scheduled for departure later that morning.

Murry’s parents said they didn’t know of her whereabouts and hadn’t talked to their daughter since she left two months earlier, but Murry’s mother later told police she had spoken to her earlier in the week and had withdrawn $300 to help her daughter flee Las Vegas.

According to the report, Murry’s father told police “his heart sank” because he suspected Murry was involved in the robbery and murder of the cabdriver after seeing news reports.

Murry is scheduled to have a 72-hour hearing at 8 a.m. Tuesday in Las Vegas Justice Court before Justice of the Peace Melanie Tobiasson.

Anyone with information about Mosely or the shooting is being asked to call Metro's Homicide Section at 828-3521 or Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.

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