Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Veteran mourns for dismembered wife

Authorities in California arrest suspect

Jerry Milam and his wife, Ladonna Milam, pose together in this undated photo provided by Jerry Milam. SPECIAL TO THE REVIEW-JOURNAL Perry Monroe Arrested Tuesday in Fresno, Calif. in connection with slaying of Ladonna Milam

Combat duty in the jungles of Vietnam did not steel Jerry Milam for news that his wife's body parts had been found floating in a Boulder City pond.

"My mind is running about 880 miles per hour," he said during a Tuesday interview at his Boulder City home. "I'm mad. What bothers me so much is I spent a tour in Vietnam. I've seen death. I've caused death. But the manner of death to my loved one, I can't comprehend that."

Authorities believe the dismembered body found Monday in Veteran's Memorial Park pond in Boulder City was that of Ladonna Milam, 49. They are awaiting the results of DNA testing.

On Tuesday, authorities in Fresno, Calif., arrested a man Las Vegas police had identified as a suspect in the slaying of the woman who worked as a porter at the Hacienda, a hotel-casino located just outside Boulder City.

Las Vegas police said Perry Monroe, 29, whom Fresno police found sleeping in a car, was charged with murder and kidnapping.

Las Vegas police Lt. Tom Monahan said Monroe was the registered occupant of the last hotel room Ladonna Milam visited during her final shift at the hotel on U.S. Highway 93 near Hoover Dam.

According to an arrest warrant, police found packages for a hacksaw and hacksaw blade in the trash can in Monroe's room. Police found a bloody towel in the shower, and strands of hair similar to the color of Ladonna Milam's hair were found on the floor and in the garbage can.

Police said Monroe's criminal record includes arrests for misdemeanors, but no known violent offenses. He has no known link to Ladonna Milam, Monahan said.

Police must rely on DNA testing because the victim's head, hands and feet have not been found. But Jerry Milam feels certain the torso and other body parts found in the pond were those of his wife.

Monroe, who has a California driver's license, arrived at the Hacienda at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, police said. Using a MasterCard, he paid for a one-night stay at the hotel, which is located in unincorporated Clark County.

Monroe made an unfavorable impression on the clerk who booked his room.

According to the warrant, the clerk "later told investigators that he had an uneasy feeling about Monroe," who "refused to make eye contact, and seemed extremely skittish during the registration process."

Police showed this clerk the photo from Monroe's California driver's license and he identified Monroe as the person who checked into the room Sunday.

Monroe was assigned to a room on the 16th floor. Sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., a man in that room phoned the front desk requesting four towels, police said.

A supervisor passed the assignment on to Ladonna Milam. A half-hour later, the male guest called the front desk again and said he still hadn't received the towels.

"Milam stated she had forgot, but promised to make the delivery," the warrant states.

Not long thereafter, Jerry Milam sat at home, waiting in vain for his phone to ring.

Ladonna Milam, mother of two adult-aged children from a previous marriage, usually called her husband when she arrived for work at 4 p.m.

"She always calls me from work to say, `I made it, hon,' " Jerry Milam said.

He said she placed this call Sunday, but did not make the usual follow-up call around 9 p.m. Her husband of nearly nine years said he brushed it off, figuring things must be busy at work. He went to sleep and awakened about 1:15 a.m.

His wife should have left work at the end of her shift two hours earlier, but she had yet to come home. Jerry Milam arose from bed, intending to call the hotel, when he heard a knock at the door. He answered the door to find a manager from the Hacienda.

"Is Ladonna here? We've been trying to get ahold of her since 9 o'clock," Jerry Milam said the woman asked him.

He added, "Right there, something clicked: Something's wrong."

He and the manager went to the hotel, where they and other co-workers searched for Ladonna Milam. They found her 1990 Ford pickup in the employee parking lot.

Jerry Milam went home, picked up the phone, and filed a missing person's report with police.

About 6:30 a.m. Monday, while Jerry Milam says he was "waiting, waiting, waiting," a woman walking her dog at Veteran's Memorial Park noticed human body parts in the pond.

Police were summoned, and a team of divers found a human torso, legs and arms in the water.

In a trash bin near the pond, authorities collected a blood-soaked, multi-colored ladies blouse and bra, the warrant states.

Jerry Milam said his wife had worn a multi-colored blouse to work the day she vanished, and that she had a vertical scar on her abdomen, similar to the one on the recovered torso.

Police later reviewed hotel surveillance video.

At about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, a person matching the physical description of Monroe could be seen carrying a large, black duffel bag toward the hotel elevator, according to the warrant.

At about 1 a.m. Monday, the videotape captured a person walking toward the rear of the hotel.

"This subject carried a black duffel bag while wearing a backpack. It appeared these objects were heavy, as demonstrated by his apparent difficulty in carrying them," the warrant states.

Jerry Milam, a 53-year-old construction worker, met his second wife about nine years ago at a bar in Slaughterville, Oklahoma. She was celebrating her birthday.

"I was down and out. I was just exhausted with life," Jerry Milam said at his home Tuesday. "I said, `Lord, something's got to change. You got to send me a mate that I love and that's going to love me.' Three weeks later, I met Ladonna. I got her on a prayer."

Three months later, the couple married and moved to Nevada. During most of that time, they have lived in Boulder City, a town of 15,000 residents where the last slaying occurred five years ago.

Friends and co-workers gathered at Jerry Milam's home on Tuesday in an effort to comfort him.

"I tried to get drunk last night, but I couldn't even do that," he said Tuesday. "My mind wouldn't allow it."

He recalled his wife as a happy presence, the kind of person who literally woke up singing.

"She sang good, too," he said. "She was my best friend. Whenever you seen me, you seen her. When you seen her, you seen me."

Jerry Milam grew intense when he thought about his wife being butchered. "All I want is the death penalty," he said with anger.

He added he has little confidence Nevada officials, whom he deemed "squeamish," would carry out a death sentence, even if a jury handed one down. "I wish to hell he was in Texas," the husband said of Monroe.

Jerry Milam has a lot of friends to lean on. But he has trouble imagining life without his best friend.

"We had a lot of plans after I retire. We were going to go here, go there," he said. "Now I've got to wake up every morning and just do what I gotta do, I guess. It's going to take a lifetime. Because I've got to live a lifetime without her."

Staff writer J.M. Kalil contributed to this story.