Las Vegas homicide spokesman Roberts signs off after 24 years

Like too many nights in the past six years of Lew Roberts' life, this one begins with death.

The veteran homicide lieutenant examines the bloody corpse before him. A half an hour ago, he was off-duty, coaching junior varsity basketball practice. Now, he's staring into the lifeless eyes of Homicide Victim No. 82.

Murder doesn't follow a schedule, and neither does Roberts.

"Nice night," he remarks to a patrol officer. The officer agrees. Aside from the dead man at their feet, it's a pleasant December evening in Las Vegas.

Sgt. Phil Fabian, a relatively new homicide sergeant with an iron-grip handshake, gives him the details:

BMA (Black Male Adult), early 30s, lying just inside the door of an apartment in the southeast valley. Shot once in the chest with a .45-caliber. A single shell casing found in the parking lot of the complex, marked now with an orange cone.

Although the victim ran about 20 yards, there's no blood trail.

Because the man was shot in the heart and the bullet remained in the body, Roberts explains, the blood collected inside the chest cavity instead of spilling out.

"It's a very clean scene. Not a lot of forensic evidence to go on," he says.

To the naked eye, it appears the man collapsed on his back with his shirt pulled up to his neck.

But the man actually fell face-first when he died, knocking out a tooth in the process. He was rolled into his current position by fire department paramedics, for whom the homicide section has its own cynical nickname.

"The Crime Scene Destruction Team," Roberts jokes. "They have no regard for what we do. Their main focus is life-saving ..."

"Which is a good thing," interrupts Jeff Rosgen, a detective with more than a decade as a homicide investigator and who is handling the scene tonight.

"Yes, it is," Roberts admits.

Their reaction is no surprise. The homicide section has little experience with the other side of the life-or-death coin. They don't get called when paramedics are successful.

Tonight, the lieutenant is just happy that no firefighters stepped in the blood. His team doesn't have any leads right now and any detail could be important.

"No suspect info?" Roberts asks lead detective Fred Merrick, who has been in homicide about two years.

"No, nothing," Merrick answers. Neighbors told police the victim was ripping off drug dealers, but there's no hard evidence.

Detective Jason McCarthy is interviewing the victim's roommate in a car. Depending on what the roommate tells police, the investigation could go in several directions. Detectives might get a lead, or the case might stall.

"The roommate is the key," Roberts says. "Maybe they'll get lucky."

Cases such as these -- one person, shot to death, no apparent motive -- are "gangs or drugs 99 percent of the time," he says.

After Roberts gives a brief news conference, a teary-eyed couple approaches, gripping each other tightly. Roberts identifies the situation right away: The dead man's family has arrived.

"I need to speak to a policeman," the trembling woman says.

Her worst fears are about to be realized, and Roberts, on his last night at a homicide scene, is the one who must tell her.

HOMICIDES THROUGH THE YEARS

After more than 24 years as a Metropolitan Police Department officer -- the past six as supervisor of the homicide section -- Lt. Lewis A. Roberts III, 47, has called it quits.

His official last day was Tuesday , but Roberts had been shedding duties for several weeks as the department handed the reins to Lt. Ray Steiber, the former supervisor of the robbery section.

The Dec. 14 case of the dead-man-in-the-doorway was relatively low-profile for a man who has handled a number of high-profile Vegas "capers," as he often called them.

There was the 2008 case of Thomas Randolph, who was accused of hiring a hit man to kill his wife -- and then killing the hit man after the job was done. The bigger twist: Four of Randolph's six former wives were dead, and Randolph had already been tried and acquitted in one wife's murder case decades earlier.

There were many other cases of note: the Luxor dancer who was dismembered and packed into cement-filled tubs; a woman found buried under a planter box after her husband sold their home and fled to the Philippines; a woman accused of arranging the killing of her mother.

And those were just in the past year.

"We've had cases other jurisdictions would dream of having," Roberts said.

Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie is the face of the department, but Roberts has been almost as recognizable as its gap-toothed spokesman on murder, winning over folks with his cool demeanor and likable personality.

The teeth are not a big deal to Roberts, by the way. When a dentist saw him on television and offered to fix his teeth several years ago, Roberts politely declined.

"This is just who I am," he said.

At his retirement party, good-humored colleagues bought him a chocolate cake shaped like a gap-toothed mouth.

Over his career, Roberts estimates he's overseen investigations into more than 600 homicides and 100 officer-involved shootings. His approach has been to throw every resource available at a case, he said. Detectives were asked to work every case around the clock until they completely ran out of leads.

Most of those cases have been solved. The homicide section's clearance rate hovered around 75 or 80 percent since Roberts took over, up from around 60 percent, which is the national average for metropolitan areas.

The case that stands out the most was one police never solved.

It was Memorial Day 2006. Roberts had only been at homicide for a few months when a group of youths opened fire into hundreds of people at a family block party in the historic Berkley Square neighborhood.

Three people were killed and five others were injured in the brazen gang shooting.

The shooting touched a chord with Roberts, who was raised near the area.

"Just a senseless act where three innocents were killed for absolutely nothing," Roberts said. "I still get calls from the families on that. It's one that will linger with me forever, but maybe we'll solve it one day."

The "straw that broke the camel's back," however, was the brutal rape and killing of 15-year-old Alyssa Otremba, an Arbor View High School freshman who was stalked by a 19-year-old man as she walked home. That man, Javier Righetti, admitted to stabbing the girl more than 80 times.

"That was pretty much it for me," Roberts said. "After Alyssa Otremba, I just didn't want to do this anymore."

A FAMILY MAN AND 'A GREAT MAN'

Back at the crime scene, Roberts has led the couple away from the news cameras.

"That's why we left Chicago," says the trembling woman. "To get away from all the gangs, drugs."

The couple are the aunt and uncle of the dead man. His mother is still in Chicago and worried sick, says the aunt, who is close to hysterics.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to tell her. I'm so scared," she says.

At this point, Roberts hasn't revealed that the victim is their nephew. The Clark County coroner's office is supposed to do family notifications. But they already seem to know, and he makes a snap decision.

"Look, I don't want you to suffer anymore," Roberts says. "It's him."

Almost instantly, a wave of calm overtakes the woman. The tears stop and she takes a deep breath.

Roberts gives them his cellphone number and tells them to pass it to the victim's mother. He doesn't know much, but he will tell her what he can, he says.

Later, he asks the uncle about the victim. Did he have any enemies? Was he involved in drugs or gangs?

"He wasn't at war with anyone," the uncle says. "He would have told me."

Roberts sends the couple home.

On the drive back to his office, he explains why he gave his personal information to the family, which he had been warned against doing when he took the job.

"God forbid something happens to my family someday, and nobody cares, and no one will talk to me," he says. "They're paying me a lot of money. This is the least I can do."

Richard Portaro, whose son, Michael "Mikey P" Portaro was gunned down outside a brew pub in March, said the homicide investigators were out­standing with his family in the three months between the killing and the suspect's arrest.

"In all the years I'd seen Lew Roberts on television, never did I think I'd be standing at a press conference with him," Portaro said. "He was a very genuine, caring guy. We didn't get into his family life, but I could tell he was a great man."

As Roberts drives, the dead man's mother calls his phone.

He takes the call, like he promised.

BORN AND RAISED IN LAS VEGAS

Roberts, unlike many officers at the Metropolitan Police Department, is a Las Vegas local. He graduated from Bishop Gorman High School in 1982, where he played basketball and football.

He grew up near Pecos Road and Carey Avenue, thought of by many as a high-crime area filled with bad guys who hate cops.

Roberts has a different perspective. People are mostly the same, no matter where you live. But instead of talking to people, police today are quicker to use force than when he patrolled in the '80s and '90s, he said.

"We didn't even have enough radios to go around when I was on patrol. If you weren't there early, you didn't get a radio. And if you got into trouble, you either talked your way down or had a neighbor call 911 to get backup," he said. "What did we do before Tasers? We talked to people. It worked for me."

Lt. John Faulis, chairman of the Las Vegas Police Managers and Supervisors Association, worked with Roberts when both patrolled West Las Vegas in the early '90s.

The area was quite a bit rougher then, with housing projects giving police all they could handle.

"He was a new sergeant, and I was a new officer, and I remember him giving us a lot of mentorship," Faulis said. "He told us to make sure you go every day doing it for the really good people that are down here. ... The majority of people were amazing. It was a few bad apples causing problems.

"That stuck with me."

Roberts hasn't decided what he'll do as a young retiree.

On his last day, Roberts stood at a podium and said an emotional goodbye to friends and family.

"They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes," he said. "I think the same thing happens when you retire."

But his job has not been his life. Basketball is a passion. He coaches at Durango High School and is an avid Los Angeles Clippers fan.

One thing the UNR alumnus is not, however, is a UNLV basketball supporter.

"Go Wolf Pack," he said.

When he gets back to his office, he erases the "81" on the whiteboard and writes in "82."

He doesn't know it yet, but his earlier prediction about the dead man's roommate being the key was correct. The roommate will tell police about a drug dealer who was seeking retribution. A week later, detectives will arrest the dealer on a murder charge.

With about two weeks left in the year, the department will likely finish below 90 homicides. That's remarkably low for a city that saw numbers in the 150s just five years ago.

Roberts is cautiously optimistic. It's been a warm December, and warm nights seem to bring out the violence.

"We'll get at least one more before the night is over," he warns.

Not 10 minutes after he's finished writing the media release on the first homicide, he gets another call.

It's the watch commander. They've got another BMA, found dead in a doorway. It's remarkably similar to the earlier case.

"Told ya," he says. "This is the part of the job I'll miss the most. I'll miss the adrenaline rush."

Roberts shuts the light off in his office and heads out for his second call of the night and final one of his career.

Death doesn't sleep, but maybe tomorrow Roberts can.

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.