McCarran shooting suspect waited for couple to return to parking garage for hours, records suggest

The man arrested in connection with the shooting of a couple on top of the McCarran International Airport parking garage Monday had been waiting for the pair to return to their car for hours, records obtained Wednesday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal suggest.

Surveillance footage shows Jeffery Brown arriving on the sixth floor of the parking garage three separate times throughout the day: once at 10:42 a.m., once at 11:40 a.m. and again at 12:42 p.m., where he then stayed, an arrest report suggests, until just after the shooting about 6 p.m.

Brown, 68, is married to but estranged from one of the victims, who had just returned from a trip to Indianapolis with her current boyfriend. At least once during the trip, Brown had called and argued with the woman, the report reads, and the woman talked with her current boyfriend about requesting airport security when they returned to Las Vegas, but decided not to.

When the couple returned, they began packing their belongings into the woman’s car. Her current boyfriend’s son, 15, was with the couple.

That’s when Brown pulled up next to them in his vehicle, the couple told police. The woman’s boyfriend “was standing about three feet away from the vehicle and asked Jeffrey (sic) if he had something to say to him,” the report said.

Brown reportedly asked his wife if the man with her “was the one she had replaced him with,” the report said. The boyfriend again asked Brown to address him if Brown had a problem.

Gunfire erupted moments later, and the woman and her boyfriend were both shot in the back as they continued to load the car.

The 15-year-old told police Brown then pointed the gun at him, so he ran away as he called 911. Brown took off from the scene in his gray Ford Escape.

The couple shot was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center with injuries that were not life-threatening. As of Wednesday, they remained hospitalized but were in good condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. The son wasn’t injured.

Brown was later arrested at the Veterans Affairs hospital in North Las Vegas after a relative told police Brown was supposed to stop by the hospital sometime Monday. Upon his arrest, Brown began “making spontaneous utterances” before officers had read him his Miranda rights.

During those utterances, Brown told police“‘the boyfriend’ got in his face” and he “shot the boyfriend first,” then shot the woman “to shut her up.”

After being read his Miranda rights, Brown added that “I wasn’t trying to kill them” because the boyfriend “was so close I could’ve just shot him in the head.”

Brown is being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center. He faces two counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, two counts of discharging a gun within an vehicle within a prohibited area and assault with a deadly weapon.

He is due in court at 8:20 a.m. Thursday.

Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Find @rachelacrosby on Twitter.