Strip slaying victim ID’d as ex-con ‘pantyhose prankster’

By Ken Ritter, Associated Press

Published Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014 | 11:14 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014 | 5:45 p.m.

A man stabbed to death last week on a Las Vegas Strip pedestrian walkway was identified Tuesday as a homeless ex-convict from Pennsylvania dubbed the "pantyhose prankster" and sentenced to prison for making lurid telephone calls to women in several Eastern states.

Rip Alan Swartz, 46, made thousands of random calls to banks, restaurants and other numbers he found in telephone books before he provided his real name to a Virginia woman and was arrested in 2011, said Detective Sgt. Thomas Kauffman, of the Upper Allen Township Police Department in Pennsylvania.

"He would stay up all night and make phone calls," Kauffman recalled Tuesday. "He said the same thing on every call, mainly focused on pantyhose. By the time it got around to that, most women would hang up."

Swartz's name became public as his alleged assailant, Calvin Boyden III, 22, of Las Vegas, made an initial court appearance on felony murder and robbery charges in the 12:40 a.m. Nov. 25 slaying on a foot bridge over Las Vegas Boulevard near the CityCenter complex.

Boyden appeared in shackles and said nothing while Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Janiece Marshall assigned a deputy public defender, Norm Reed, to the case and set a Dec. 15 preliminary hearing.

Boyden was being held without bail at the Clark County jail. Reed said Boyden plans to plead not guilty.

Reed said he wanted to review the police investigation and view security video before talking about the case.

A motive for the slaying wasn't immediately clear, but police said Boyden and Swartz were involved in a confrontation on the walkway before the stabbing, and that Boyden left the walkway before he was arrested.

Swartz was taken to University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Jail records show that Boyden also was held on felony domestic battery with a weapon and burglary charges stemming from what Reed said was a separate incident.

It took several days to locate Swartz's next-of-kin, coroner's officials in Las Vegas said Monday.

Records showed Swartz, originally from Shiremanstown, Pa., was convicted in Harrisburg, Pa., of felony telephone harassment and served from October to December 2011 in state prison, said Sue McNaughton, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

Swartz told a judge in October 2011 that he was ashamed to have made thousands of obscene calls during a five-year period, and he said he hoped to complete a treatment program and put the calls behind him.