Homicide suspect had victim’s gun, police say

A man suspected in a fatal shooting was arrested with a gun stolen from the person who was killed, according to an arrest report released Wednesday.

Clayton Perkins, 25, was booked on a charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the death of Joel Damian-Marin, 48, on Nov. 2, 2021.

The report from the Metropolitan Police Department said Damian-Marin was standing in the backyard of his home on Denali Preserve Street around 1 a.m. when he was shot.

Video from nearby homes showed Damian-Marin walking with a flashlight and his 9 mm handgun outside his house moments before he was killed. A man could be heard on a second video, recorded minutes later, saying, “Oh God, Oh God,” while a second man said, “Let’s get out of here,” and ran from Damian-Marin’s yard, according to the arrest report.

Officers discovered Perkins’ phone number, which showed that he was in the area at the time of the shooting, but much of the information about how police uncovered Perkin’s phone number was redacted from the report, citing law enforcement tactics.

Perkins was arrested outside Horseshoe Las Vegas exactly 25 hours after Damian-Marin was found dead. A federal court document indicates Perkins was attempting to pay for sex with an undercover Metro officer, and when he was arrested, Damian-Marin’s 9 mm handgun fell out of Perkins’ pocket.

He was initially charged with pandering and owning a gun as a prohibited person, but state prosecutors dropped the charges after he was sentenced to 18 months of federal prison and 30 months of probation for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

On March 4, Perkins was booked in Henderson Detention Center on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing a police officer. Metro detectives interviewed him in jail about the homicide, but Perkins denied ever being near Damian-Marin’s house.

“When told that his phone placed him in the area of the shooting at the time of the shooting, Perkins said detectives were lying,” Metro detectives wrote in the arrest report.

Perkins had not been booked into the Clark County Detention Center on the murder charge as of Wednesday.

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