Trial nears for ex-Las Vegas firefighter accused of hiring hitman to kill wife

Camera crews started setting up last week for what's expected to be one of the highest-profile murder trials in Las Vegas this year.

Jury selection starts Monday in the case against George Tiaffay, a former Las Vegas firefighter accused of hiring a homeless man to kill his wife, Shauna Tiaffay, who was beaten to death with a hammer after returning home from work at the Palms in September 2012.

Prosecutors have said they plan to call between 20 and 30 witnesses in the trial that could run anywhere from two weeks to a month. A list of potential defense witnesses includes nine names.

The slaying drew national attention almost immediately after the 46-year-old mother was bludgeoned to death in her Summerlin home.

Inside District Judge Eric Johnson's courtroom, in anticipation of the trial, the CBS investigative television show "48 Hours" planted two robotic cameras, which can be monitored from a computer stationed in the hall on the tenth floor of the Regional Justice Center. Dateline NBC also has requested access to the courtroom at trial, along with every Las Vegas TV news outlet. Courthouse Marshals said they expected to reserve the entire first row of the courtroom gallery for media.

The case is far from a whodunit, but the motive is unclear. In January 2013, Noel "Greyhound" Stevens, told a judge that he used a hammer to beat Shauna Tiaffay to death and that George Tiaffay hired him to do it.

Stevens, who testified to a grand jury that he hit the Palms cocktail waitress in the head 17 times with a hammer, pleaded guilty to six charges, including first-degree murder, robbery and two counts each of burglary and conspiracy. He is still awaiting sentencing, as he is expected to testify for prosecutors.

George Tiaffay's lawyer, Robert Langford, has tried to discredit Stevens's testimony as the ranting of a "crazy homeless guy."

Authorities allege Tiaffay, a 1994 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who started as a Las Vegas firefighter in 2002, paid Stevens to kill his wife. The couple were divorcing.

George Tiaffay was with the couple's then-8-year-old daughter when the walked into the grisly scene at the Willowbrook Apartments, 2601 S. Pavilion Center Dr., near the intersection of Sahara Avenue and the Las Vegas Beltway.

Shauna Tiaffay had been dead for hours by the time they got there.

Her body was cold and stiff, according to police. A hole from a hammer blow to the side of her head was so deep paramedics initially thought she had been shot.

George Tiaffay and Stevens were linked to the crime by cellphone records that indicated the duo met a few hours after the killing, authorities have said. They were recorded on a store surveillance camera buying a hammer, knife and gloves a few weeks before Shauna Tiaffay's death.

Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker