Thursday, March 31, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
MURDER-SUICIDE: Man kills woman, self in street
Shooter chased victim, shot her multiple times at intersection
By BRIAN HAYNES
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Sheets cover the bodies of a man and a woman killed Wednesday night in a murder-suicide at the intersection of Rainbow Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue.
Photo by Craig L. Moran.
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A man shot and killed his wife in the middle of a busy Las Vegas intersection Wednesday evening, then turned the gun on himself, police and witnesses said.
Las Vegas homicide detectives were investigating the murder-suicide, which shut down most of the intersection of Rainbow Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue about 6:20 p.m.
Detectives said that it appeared the victim was the estranged wife of the killer and that the couple had a history of domestic violence.
Police did not release the names of the husband and wife, who were about 30 years old.
Joseph Scott was walking near the 7-Eleven on the corner when he saw a woman get out of a vehicle on westbound Cheyenne and run toward the median.
A man jumped from the same vehicle and followed her. She got to the median when he fired, he said.
She fell to the ground, and he fired another shot into her head at close range, Scott said.
The man then shot himself in the head, he said.
Chris Faircloth, 29, was waiting to turn left on Cheyenne when he heard gunshots behind his truck.
"I was going to buy CDs. Next thing I know, boom, boom, boom, boom," he said.
Faircloth peered into his rearview mirror and saw a woman crumple to the ground. He hit the gas and ran the red light, he said.
"Bullets don't have any names," he said.
By the time he turned around and pulled into a corner parking lot, the man had shot himself in the head, he said.
Faircloth said he heard four shots before the man killed himself.
"I'm going to start wearing a bulletproof vest around Vegas," he said.
For several hours after the incident, both bodies lay under sheets on the concrete median, which sits between a Burger King and a smog-testing facility.
Las Vegas police shut down the intersection in all directions except for eastbound Cheyenne. Traffic heading in that direction was allowed to turn south onto Rainbow. All other traffic was detoured.
