Henderson man with 3 probation sentencings charged with murder

Henderson police charged a man with murder nearly two years after a car crash turned into a deadly shooting.

Weeks before he died, Xavier Steen, 34, told police he crashed into a Nissan sedan on Jan. 1, 2021, near Valle Verde Drive and Sunset Road. Steen and the other driver got out of their vehicles and a fight ensued, according to an arrest report from the Henderson Police Department released Thursday.

The other driver, identified in the arrest report as Marquis White, 29, reached back into his Nissan Maxima and grabbed a 9mm handgun, shooting Steen in both his legs before White drove off, the report stated.

Steen died two weeks after the collission at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center from complications of gunshot wounds to the lower extremities, according to the Clark County coroner’s office.

Detectives tracked the Nissan from the scene of the crash to the area of Warm Springs and Boulder Highway, where White lived with his girlfriend. It was unclear why authorities did not speak to White or his girlfriend until Nov. 2, when White was arrested for violating parole.

The girlfriend told police last week that she remembered White rear-ending a vehicle that cut in front of them and after White got out of the car, she heard one gunshot.

White told police that Steen was threatening him so he fired a warning shot.

“The male also starts threatening to have his friends come to the location and begins to get closer to Marquis, so Marquis goes to his Nissan Maxima vehicle and pulls a handgun out of the center console and discharges his handgun up in the air to try to scare the male,” detectives wrote in the report.

White was on probation with an open firearms case when he was arrested last week, according to Clark County District Court records.

He was found guilty of battery with intent to commit a crime in 2014 and sentenced to four years of probation. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit petit larceny and sentenced to two years on probation.

In January, he was sentenced to another two years probation after he pleaded guilty to attempted ownership of a firearm as a felon. In August, he pleaded guilty to attempting to carry a concealed firearm or other deadly weapon. He was scheduled for sentencing in that case Monday.

He is being held without bail in the Clark County Detention Center.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.