3 suspects to stand trial in torture, killing of Las Vegas man

PAHRUMP — A judge ended testimony early Friday after determining that he had heard enough during a preliminary hearing to order three people accused of torturing and fatally shooting a Las Vegas man to stand trial.

Pahrump Justice of the Peace Kent Jasperson issued the order for Las Vegas resident Heather Pate, 27; her boyfriend, 36-year-old Kevin Dent; and her former boyfriend, 37-year-old Brad Mehn, to stand trial on kidnapping and murder charges in the August death of 27-year-old Roy Jaggers.

Jaggers’ naked and bloody body was found Aug. 1 in Cathedral Canyon, a remote desert area near Pahrump.

A medical examiner with the Clark County coroner’s office testified Thursday that he found more than 30 shotgun pellets and fragments in Jaggers’ body.

Two people testified Thursday that they saw Jaggers’ body in Cathedral Canyon.

Michael Ward, who said he had been sleeping near the canyon, said he called 911 after spotting Jaggers’ body early Aug. 1 with two men standing over it.

Norman Mullet, an acquaintance of Mehn’s, said he agreed to go to the canyon with Mehn because he was told Jaggers was still alive.

“He said, ‘We caught a child molester, and they wanted to teach him a lesson. We beat the crap out of him, but I think we’ve gone too far,’” Mullet said Thursday, recounting a conversation with Mehn.

Mullet said Mehn gave him a toolbox and garbage bags to hold onto that day, but he refused his request to “get rid of” a shotgun.

Shotgun recovered from garage

On Friday, Yeonne and Robert Hickman, two of Mehn’s friends, testified that Mehn put a shotgun in their garage on Aug. 1. Investigators later identified the shotgun as the weapon used to shoot Jaggers.

Yeonne Hickman testified that police escorted Mehn to her Pahrump home the next day, and Mehn confessed to the killing.

“All I remember him saying is, ‘I killed him,’” she said.

Yeonne Hickman’s husband, Robert, said that while he did not remember Mehn explicitly saying he killed someone, he did talk with Mehn when police escorted him to the home.

“He indicated he may not be seeing daylight for a long time,” Robert Hickman said.

Mehn, sitting next to defense attorney Thomas Gibson, was seen shaking and crying as the Hickmans testified.

Following the hearing, Gibson said there were multiple issues with the Nye County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation. He said investigators failed to read Miranda rights to the defendants before asking them questions on multiple occasions, and that text messages about the case exchanged between top Sheriff’s Office officials were not turned over to the district attorney’s office.

Gibson also questioned the lead investigator’s experience.

Yoanna Sotelo, the Sheriff’s Office’s lead homicide investigator in the case, testified Friday that Jaggers’ death marked the first time she had been in charge of a homicide investigation.

None of the testimony on Thursday or Friday addressed the specifics of Pate’s allegation that Jaggers had hurt one of her young children. Gibson said he expects the allegation to play a major role in later proceedings.

“That’s a huge mitigator,” Gibson told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday. “I mean yes, you don’t go on and take the law into your own hands. But if (the allegation is) true, that should have an impact on how we negotiate this thing in the future.”

Arrest reports detail abduction, torture

According to arrest reports, Jaggers was lured to Pate’s home on July 31, where he was handcuffed and forced into her car. Before the judge ended the hearing, prosecutor Kirk Vitto said he was prepared to show video of Dent leading a handcuffed Jaggers into Pate’s car and then checking that the vehicle’s child locks were on.

Pate and Dent then met with Mehn in Pahrump, and the three tortured Jaggers in the desert with a blowtorch, knives, baton and axe, authorities have said. Jaggers was then taken to Cathedral Canyon, where he was stripped of his clothes and forced to walk off a cliff.

Mehn then shot Jaggers multiple times, the reports said.

After more than six hours of witness testimony on Thursday, Jasperson ended the preliminary hearing Friday after little more than an hour of additional testimony, although the prosecution was prepared to call additional witnesses.

“I believe, as I’ve already indicated a couple times here, that the state has met its burden of proof in this matter,” the judge said.

Jasperson set a hearing in Nye County District Court for the defendants on Nov. 5.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.