Bryan Clay, 22, enters the courtroom for an initial appearance at the Regional Justice Center Tuesday, May 5, 2012. Clay faces charges in connection with a double-homicide of a mother and daughter in their Robin Street home on April 15, 2012.
Published Wednesday, June 13, 2012 | 11:11 a.m.
Updated Wednesday, June 13, 2012 | 11:25 a.m.
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Bryan Clay, the man accused in the April 15 sex attacks and hammer slayings of a Las Vegas mother and her daughter.
Clay, 22, was arraigned Wednesday morning in Clark County District Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 10 felony charges, including two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, one count of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, sexual assault with a deadly weapon against a minor under 14 years old, kidnapping, robbery and burglary with a deadly weapon.
During the hearing, prosecutors from the Clark County District Attorney’s Office informed Judge Jessie Walsh that earlier Wednesday morning they had filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in the case.
After Clay entered his plea and waived his right to a speedy trial, Walsh set a trial for June 24, 2013.
Clay is accused in the slayings of Ignacia Yadira Martinez and her 10-year-old daughter, Karla Martinez, whose bludgeoned bodies were found in the beds of their Las Vegas home. Autopsies on the woman and her daughter determined they had been sexually assaulted during the attacks, a police report states.
Arturo Martinez-Sanchez, the husband and father of the family, also suffered hammer blows to the head during the rampage.
The attack was reported on April 16 by a 9-year-old boy who walked to Hoggard Elementary School and told a teacher that his mother and sister were dead and that his father was acting strange and had two holes in his head.
Clay also is charged in a separate sexual assault of a 50-year-old woman in the early morning hours of April 15. The woman was sexually assaulted amid a patch of tall weeds near Tonopah and Vegas drives, police said.
Police were able to match DNA from that sexual assault with DNA and other evidence found on the bodies of the Martinezes.
Editor’s note: The original version of this story was based on an official report that provided an incomplete listing of Arturo Martinez-Sanchez’s name. The story was updated April 12, 2013, to include Martinez-Sanchez’s full name.
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