‘Zumanity’ dancer details relationship with Griffith during trial

“Zumanity” dancer Agnes Roux testified that in early December 2010 she told Jason “Blu” Griffith she wouldn’t get back together with him if he continued to have any kind of relationship with Debbie Flores Narvaez.

“It was quite obvious she couldn’t be in the picture if I was back,” Roux said Monday.

Roux’s testimony came on the eighth day of Griffith’s murder trial. He’s accused of choking Flores Narvaez to death on Dec. 12, 2010, and then dismembering her body and hiding it in concrete-filled plastic tubs in an empty downtown home.

Griffith last week tearfully testified that he acted in self-defense when he wrapped his forearms around Flores Narvaez’s neck and restrained her from reaching her purse, where he believed she had a gun. He said Flores Narvaez had threatened to kill him and herself during an ongoing fight over him trying to end their relationship. While restraining her, Flores Narvaez went limp and wouldn’t wake up. He later found there was no gun in the purse, Griffith said.

Prosecutors have said Griffith’s actions were done in self-preservation. He feared a second domestic violence arrest over a fight with Flores Narvaez could hurt his career as a dancer and end his relationship with Roux, prosecutors said.

Roux testified she had broken up with Griffith months earlier when she learned Griffith was having an affair with Flores Narvaez. Roux also learned he was sleeping with two separate female dancers from the Cirque du Soleil show “Love,” in which he danced.

Before their breakup, Roux believed Griffith had maintained a monogamous relationship with her. She also believed that Flores Narvaez was harassing and stalking Griffith and was behaving ir­rationally. Roux was under the impression that his relationship with Flores Narvaez had ended in May 2010. However, he continued to have sex with her, testimony has shown.

Roux described how Flores Narvaez pushed, slapped and spit on Griffith in an October 2010 incident while she yelled at him to tell Roux the truth about their relation­ship. At one point Flores Narvaez began to kick Griffith’s car door and Griffith grabbed her by the shoulders to move her. Roux said Flores Narvaez fell to the ground; Griffith didn’t push her down. “Her fall seemed disproportionate” to how he grabbed her, Roux said.

Flores Narvaez then sat on the ground crying before Roux helped her get up, she said.

Griffith was later arrested and charged with coercion in the incident. The case was later dropped.

The jury also heard Roux call 911 on Griffith’s behalf after an incident where Flores Narvaez was in her car chasing Griffith to his home. The jury has heard fourteen 911 calls Griffith made involving domestic incidents with Flores Narvaez during their yearlong on-again, off-again relationship.

Testimony has shown that their volatile relationship sparked into heated confrontation after Flores Narvaez twice became pregnant and sought more attention from Griffith. He has said he became scared of her violent tendencies.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Michelle Fleck asked Roux whether Griffith had told her about a threatening letter he found on his car.

Griffith had said the letter was from Flores Narvaez, and it stated she would kill Griffith before she would let him be with another woman, Roux said.

Fleck then asked whether Roux knew that Griffith had learned four years ago that the note was written by his roommate Louis Colombo.

Roux said she didn’t know that and looked squarely at Griffith, apparently realizing he had duped her again. Griffith had testified to the jury last week that he believed the letter was from Flores Narvaez. Prosecutors then confronted him with text messages showing he knew in 2010 that Colombo wrote the letter.

Fleck then asked Roux to recall whether, after she had dumped him for cheating on her, Griffith had become suicidal.

Roux remembered telling police she did not necessarily believe he was suicidal. “I just believe he’s a great actor,” she said she told police.

Earlier Monday, Griffith finished testifying after four days on the witness stand. Prosecutors quizzed him on numerous issues, including what he had done with Flores Narvaez’s cellphone after killing her.

Griffith said he had dumped it in the neighborhood around his North Las Vegas home, where she died. However, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo pointed out that her cellphone was pinging off of a cellphone tower at New York-New York, where Griffith had gone to meet Roux after the killing.

Griffith’s lawyers said they did not plan on calling any other witnesses and would rest their case today. Prosecutors may then call rebuttal witnesses.

District Judge Kathleen Delaney said closing arguments in the case could begin as early as this afternoon.

Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter @fjmccabe