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Thursday, September 10, 1998
Father relieved an arrest made
Two anti-racist skinheads may have been lured into the desert where they were shot, police say.
By Joe Schoenmann
Review-Journal
A Las Vegas man with a lengthy arrest record has been charged in the July slayings of anti-racist skinheads Daniel Shersty and Lin Newborn, and police said more arrests were expected.
Police also said the two victims may have been lured to a desert area in the northwest part of the valley where they were shot to death.
"This was not a random act," Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said. "From information we have so far, it looks like Lin Newborn was targeted."
"We think there was more than one person responsible," he said.
The bodies of Shersty, 20, and Newborn, 25, were found July 4 and July 6 respectively within 200 yards of each other three miles west of U.S. HIghway 95 near Rome Boulevard.
John "Polar Bear" Butler, 26, was booked late Tuesday on two charges of murder with a weapon.
Butler has been in jail for almost two months. He was arrested July 15 on charges of possession of a controlled substance, possession of a stolen vehicle and being an ex-felon in possession of a concealed weapon.
Newborn's father, Lionel Newborn, said he "feels real good" about Butler's arrest. "This is the first positive thing that's happened to me in a long time."
He said Wednesday night that his mother, suffering from cancer and Alzheimer's disease, had been hospitalized. And within the last year, both his wife and another son had died.
"I was just thinking to myself, actually I was praying, I was thanking the Lord for not allowing me to hate this guy," he said of Butler.
"Hate is what killed my son. Evil is hate. Hate is evil. And that's what the alleged perpetrator had; he had hatefulness in his heart, and I can't do that," he said.
Petersen said a "culmination of information" led to Butler's arrest, including witness statements and bullets found at the crime scene.
Ballistics tests showed the bullets were a match for a weapon found on Butler during his arrest, Petersen said. He said that more than one weapon was used in the slayings.
Witnesses told police they saw Butler and two others driving from the area where Shersty's body was found. The witnesses wrote down a license plate number, and police traced it to a vehicle belonging to the family of Melissa Jane Hack, 22, of Las Vegas.
Petersen said police thought Hack and Joseph Justin, 19, were in the vehicle with Butler. Police have interviewed Hack and Justin. Neither has been charged.
Police said they needed the public's help "for any connections between Butler, Hack, Justin and the victims on the afternoon and evening of July 3rd and the morning of July 4th."
Justin's father, Charles, said his son has an alibi.
"I know he was home that night, the Fourth of July and the fifth," he said Wednesday. "I know he didn't do it."
On July 4, 1994, Hack was among a group of white men and women accused of taunting a group of black men and women on Linn Lane, according to a police report. The report detailed a police response to what was described as a racially motivated incident.
"As officers arrived, the officers could hear the group of white male and white females screaming racial slurs at the group of black males and females who were standing in (the area)," the report said.
Hack could not be reached for comment.
Paramedics transported two of the black women to Sunrise Hospital for bruises, cuts and possible broken fingers.
Shersty and Newborn considered themselves members of an anti-racist skinhead group known as Anti-Racist Action. Other group members said that Shersty and Newborn left on the evening of July 3 to meet some women to go to a party.
Petersen said that police did not know who those women were but that police thought the women lured the two to their deaths.
The father of one of the group's members said that about 10 people who associated with the group, including his son, have moved out of Las Vegas because they feared they would be targeted for violence.
Members of organization nationwide expressed relief at the arrest.
"We applaud the Las Vegas police and their methodical work and hope this is the beginning of bringing all the participants in this crime to justice," said Gerry Bello, a member of the ARA in Ohio. "We hope the arrest brings more people forward with information."
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JOHN BUTLERSlaying suspect
Lionel Newborn, in his Las Vegas home, said the arrest late Tuesday of 26-year-old John Butler in the death of his son, Lin, was "the first positive thing that's happened to me in a long time."
Photo by John Gurzinski.
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