Las Vegas police seek murder suspect a year after man’s death

Geoffrey Going’s best friend said the Southern California native found his oasis in Las Vegas.

But the city is also where Going died a “senseless death” just over a year ago from a brain injury, after he was knocked to the ground outside a bar and left alone, said Going’s friend Kurt Anderson.

Police believe they know who attacked the 43-year-old, and an arrest warrant has been signed for a murder charge, but more than a year after his death, Going’s family and friends are still left with questions.

Anderson, who grew up with Going, said his friend was a passionate singer who moved to Las Vegas several years ago and found work on the Strip. In the aftermath of Going’s death, Anderson assumed that officials would consider it an accident.

“You just had that feeling of like, nobody seems to care,” Anderson said during a phone interview from California in early June.

Listed as John Doe at hospital

The call from Going’s father came in late May 2019. Anderson said Going, who “always called,” failed to meet up with his dad, who was immediately worried.

Friends of friends began searching until they found a John Doe at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center who matched Going’s description. Anderson, who was living in New York at the time, jumped on a plane to Las Vegas.

Going had suffered a head injury, although the hospital workers didn’t know that at first. On May 30, a security officer at a strip mall in the 900 block of East Sahara Avenue, near Maryland Parkway, called 911 to report an unconscious man who was unable to answer questions.

Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Ray Spencer said hospital workers first assumed the man was just too intoxicated. But after Going fell off a gurney at the hospital, staff noticed he had a significant head injury, Spencer said.

Going died on June 7, 2019. The Clark County coroner’s office called Spencer’s homicide detectives after his death, but the arrest warrant wasn’t signed until June 1.

“The main holdup on this was simply waiting on the coroner to make a ruling,” Spencer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in May.

Police needed a signed document from the coroner’s office to issue a warrant, he said. In March, the office ruled Going’s death a homicide due to blunt force injuries of the head and related complications.

The arrest warrant indicated that Going suffered serious brain bleeding and a “head fracture.”

Although court and jail records show that no arrests have been made in the case, the arrest warrant identifies the suspect as George Kahaleua-Doctorello of Pahrump.

Public records don’t list any phone numbers for a Kahaleua-Doctorello in Pahrump.

Police wrote in the warrant that “detectives made attempts to contact Kahaleua-Doctorello regarding his account of the aforementioned details and have had no contact from him.”

A bartender and a former employee at the Badlands Bar — the country-themed gay bar Going was found outside of — both told police about Kahaleua-Doctorello, according to the warrant.

Surveillance footage from outside the bar showed “what appeared to be the victim being hit or thrown to the ground” by a man police believe to be Kahaleua-Doctorello, the document said.

According to the warrant, the footage also showed Kahaleua-Doctorello and a friend walk out of the bar after Going was hurt, and the two “appeared to be talking further about the incident, re-enacting it.”

The men stood over Going while he was unconscious, but it was a security guard at the Green Door — an adult club in the same shopping center — who later called police.

A bartender told police that the night Going was hurt, a former employee visited the Badlands Bar with a man he knew as “Keoki.”

The bartender said that during the night, Keoki left the bar alone and said he was going to the Green Door. The bartender told police that “Keoki came back into the bar and told (the former employee) that some guy had run up on him and Keoki hit him,” according to the warrant.

The former employee also spoke with detectives and identified “Keoki” as George Kahaleua-Doctorello, the warrant said.

“(The former employee) told detectives that Kahaleua-Doctorello did not describe an altercation or fight,” according to the warrant. “Kahaleua-Doctorello said the male walked up on him, asked for a light to a cigarette and then got ‘handsy,’ as in poking and touching him.”

Before he was hurt, surveillance footage showed Going talking to people in the street “in a non-violent way, appearing to be asking for something, possibly cigarettes,” according to the warrant.

Because Kahaleua-Doctorello and his friend did not tell paramedics that Going was hurt, he was “not initially treated for the injuries” at the hospital, the warrant said.

‘A very good boy’

May 31 was Going’s birthday. He would have been 44.

Anderson said he and Going grew up like brothers in Huntington Beach, California.

Going was fiercely private about his personal life and close with his family, Anderson said. He was more introverted than your average “theater kid.”

“That really was his hobby, was performing, and singing and writing songs and playing on the piano,” he said.

Mary Anderson, Going’s godmother and Kurt Anderson’s mother, said Going was an adorable child who wanted to be the best at everything he did. She said she helped raise Going alongside her son, and he sent her a present every Mother’s Day.

“He just was a good boy,” she said. “He was a very good boy, and he was kind.”

When Going was in high school, Kurt Anderson persuaded him to perform during a talent show. It’s when Anderson realized his quiet friend had a beautiful voice.

“From that point on, he caught the bug,” Anderson said.

During Going’s funeral, before his ashes were spread off of the Southern California coast, his family played a recording of him singing the same song he sang at the talent show — “Bring Him Home” from the musical “Les Miserables.”

Kurt Anderson said it has been frustrating feeling like no one outside Going’s circle of family and friends cared about his death. A resolution to the case could bring some closure, he said.

“It’s not like we were gunning for some big arrest, but you just want something more meaningful out of a tragic situation,” he said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.