Lawrence O'Rourke talks about being wrongly accused of killing his wife. Las Vegas authorities released him from jail Wednesday after another man confessed to the slaying. Photo by John Locher.
They all thought he did it.
The homicide detectives. The jail guards. Even his mother-in-law.
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No matter what Lawrence "Larry" O'Rourke told them, they all thought he was a killer.
O'Rourke could not remember what happened in his apartment that night in early November, but he was not the one who killed his wife. She was the only woman who ever made him feel whole.
But the police had the evidence and their man. They had little reason to question their case until Tuesday, when a man walked into a Salvation Army 500 miles away and asked for a bus ticket to Las Vegas. The man said that he had done something bad and that the wrong man was paying for it.
O'Rourke does not remember much from that Nov. 1 night at the Nellis Lodge apartments on Las Vegas Boulevard. He told investigators he woke up, tripped over his wife and called 911 for help.
But 44-year-old Jamie O'Rourke was already dead. She was lying on the floor next to the bed. Blood streamed from her head.
The O'Rourkes had met outside a 7-Eleven in early 2005, and their relationship bloomed, O'Rourke said.
She visited him on his many trips to the hospital to treat his terminal illness.
"I knew this was a person who wasn't going to rob me, cheat me or steal from me," O'Rourke said. "For the first time in my life, I felt completely whole."
They married in August.
When police inspected the apartment, they immediately suspected O'Rourke. They found no evidence of a break-in. The door was deadbolted when help arrived. O'Rourke had fresh scratches on his neck and chest, a police report said.
They found a bloody sheet and towel in a garbage bin outside.
To detectives, it looked like O'Rourke had killed his wife in the heat of an argument. They tried to get him to admit as much during the interrogation, he said.
O'Rourke maintained his innocence.
"Even though I don't remember, I knew I was innocent, deep in my heart," he said.
Detectives booked O'Rourke on one count of murder. He spent 18 days in the hospital because of his illness before being transferred to the Clark County Detention Center medical ward. Doctors said he probably would live for just two more months, he said.
But nothing was as frightening to O'Rourke than the thought of dying and being labeled a killer.
Las Vegas homicide detectives got the first hint that they had charged the wrong man on Tuesday, when a woman from Catholic Charities in Grand Valley, Colo., called. The woman told them a man had confessed to a killing in Las Vegas and had asked for a bus ticket to come back and turn himself in.
After talking to the woman and the man's uncle, police thought the story was credible. The uncle relayed details that only the killer would have known, such as the fact that an oxygen bottle was used to bludgeon Jamie O'Rourke in the head.
The uncle, Ronald Mundlin of Grand Junction, Colo., said his nephew, Charles Mundlin-Rindfliesch, told him he planned to rob the couple, but after hitting them in the heads with the oxygen bottle, he got scared and left. Several hours later, Mundlin-Rindfliesch called 911 and sent help to the apartment, the uncle told police.
Detectives discovered that Mundlin-Rindfliesch had lived at the Nellis Lodge apartments until being evicted in October.
With the new information, detectives and prosecutors worked to get an arrest warrant for Mundlin-Rindfliesch and get O'Rourke out of jail. He was released Wednesday afternoon.
Lt. Tom Monahan, chief of the homicide section, offered his apologies to O'Rourke.
"It's an imperfect system, and this shows the safeguards in place do work," he said.
O'Rourke's lawyers at the Clark County special public defender's office celebrated the news.
O'Rourke will be able to die "with a much clearer mind and clearer heart," said Randy Pike, assistant special public defender.
The news was a relief for O'Rourke. His name was cleared, and for the first time since his arrest, he was able to cry over his wife's death. He said he still feels guilty for not mourning her during his incarceration, but he was too worried about watching his back and facing charges for a murder he did not commit.
O'Rourke left the jail and went to a local hospice, where he plans to stay for a short time before leaving Las Vegas for good, he said.
He wants to find his wife's ashes. Then, when he dies, he can have his cremated body mixed with hers to be buried together. He said he came to terms with dying long ago. Now he welcomes it.
