Couple indicted in slaying of apartment complex owner
A Las Vegas couple was indicted on murder and conspiracy charges in the slaying of a man whose body was found boxed up in pieces in a downtown residence in November.
Anthony Stiger and Melanie Costantini, both 20, are being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center. They also were indicted on one count each of armed robbery and burglary. An arraignment was scheduled for Jan. 4 before Judge Jessie Walsh.
They were arrested last month at Southern California's Venice Beach a week after the body of Harold Shilberg, 58, was discovered in a garment box at the bottom of stairs at the Newport Apartments, 2540 Fremont St., near Charleston Boulevard.
Shilberg owned and lived at the apartments. Stiger lived at the complex with Costantini, his wife, and worked there as a maintenance man, according to the couple's arrest report.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Shilberg in the box next to a running U-Haul moving truck. Detectives went to the U-Haul store a half mile away and found surveillance video of Stiger from earlier that evening renting a truck and buying a garment box, according to the report.
Police also found large amounts of blood throughout the couple's apartment, the report said.
Shilberg died from multiple "incised wounds."
In a November interview with KTNV-TV, Channel 13, Stiger claimed self-defense. Stiger said the two men had argued about needed repairs at the complex when Stiger approached him with an electric saw.
The two men fought in the bathroom of Stiger's apartment, according to Stiger, before Shilberg's neck was sliced by the saw. Stiger said Shilberg died in the bathtub.
Contact reporter Francis McCabe at
fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039.
