Neighbors aghast at discovery of body in car trunk
The wide-eyed woman kept asking the same question: "So his body was found in the trunk?"
"It's a horrible feeling," she said Tuesday night from her south valley home. She asked to remain anonymous.
"This is a quiet neighborhood," she said.
Just after 2 a.m., only a few houses away from where the woman lives in the 1800 block of Glistening Sands Drive, authorities investigating a fire made a grisly discovery inside the garage.
A body was found in the trunk of a car.
Clark County firefighters found the home's garage, near Eastern Avenue and Warm Springs Road, engulfed in flames.
The discovery of the body led to a Las Vegas police homicide investigation.
Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy said Tuesday the dead man has not been identified.
Little information was released by police. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday afternoon.
"The body of a deceased person had been discovered in the garage area of the residence and the circumstances appeared suspicious," police wrote in a statement.
Wood planks boarded up the garage of the home at 1802 Glistening Sands. Black smoke damage covered large swaths of the home's stucco exterior.
According to county property records, the single-story 1,215 square-foot home was bought by Gladys Gilberto in 1992.
A few neighbors who were home Tuesday night said they didn't know much about the man who lived there. He kept to himself. They guessed he might have worked a late-night job somewhere.
Firefighters contained the blaze to the garage and extinguished it within 10 minutes. Fire damages were estimated at $75,000.
Las Vegas police were called to investigate the body about 30 minutes after firefighters arrived at the home.
Finding bodies in car trunks is uncommon in the Las Vegas Valley.
In June 2006, the body of Demetrio Hernandez was found in the trunk of a Buick LeSabre in an apartment complex near Rochelle Avenue and Lindell Road.
Police said Hernandez's death was a revenge killing for selling a bad batch of methamphetamine to a woman.
In April 2008, 51-year-old Salvador Gonzalez's body was found wrapped in a shower curtain in the trunk of his Ford Escort on Kyle Canyon Road near Mount Charleston.
Gonzalez was stabbed to death by a man who said Gonzalez attempted to sexually assault his girlfriend, police said.
Tuesday's discovery shook residents.
Robin Barnes, another neighbor who lives close to the burned home that is now a crime scene, had another question that she couldn't wrap her mind around.
"Who could have done that?"
Anyone with information on the incident is urged to contact the Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide Section at 828-3521 or Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.
Review-Journal reporter Colton Lochhead contributed to this report. Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.
