Retired CIA contract worker shot, killed in mall parking lot Tuesday

The man shot to death outside a shopping mall Tuesday has been identified as Robert Hoy.

Hoy’s friend, Bruce Moore, said Hoy was a retired CIA employee and moved to Las Vegas to care for his daughter with autism. Hoy’s wife later told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he had done contract work for the agency.

The 69-year-old was killed in a shooting at 1:36 p.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of the Arroyo Market Square mall in the 7200 block of Arroyo Crossing Parkway in between South Tenaya Way and South Rainbow Boulevard, the Metropolitan Police Department said.

The Clark County coroner’s office confirmed Hoy’s identity and age Wednesday but did not release the cause and manner of his death.

Police have not made an arrest in the shooting and haven’t disclosed the alleged shooter’s name and details about what prompted the shooting.

Metro spokesman Bob Wicks said that the department has submitted documents to the district attorney’s office for possible prosecution but added that he was unable to furnish specifics about it.

Moore, who owns a farm outside Cincinnati, said in a phone interview that Hoy, known by friends as “Robbie,” stayed with him for a week after Moore hosted the Highlands High School Class of 1973 50th reunion in September.

“His wife called me this morning,” said Moore, who posted about Hoy’s death Wednesday on the Class of 1973 reunion’s page on Facebook. “I am just shocked by all this.”

He said Hoy’s wife told him that before the shooting Tuesday, Hoy left their Las Vegas home to pick up her prescription medication at the Walmart pharmacy located at the mall, Moore said.

Attempts to reach Kathleen Hoy on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Passion for history

Moore, who said he has known Hoy since they were in the sixth grade in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, said that they were teammates on the high school’s football championship-winning squad in the early 1970s and that Hoy later joined the military and graduated from Eastern Kentucky University.

After getting his degree, Hoy “spent a whole lot of time in the Middle East” while working for the CIA and later worked in private industry for firms that did intelligence-related work for the U.S. government as a specialist in computer software, according to Moore.

Hoy’s real passion was history, Moore said. “He was a genius with history,” he said. “He could tell you about Napoleonic battles, World War I battles, battles going back to (ancient) Egyptian times.”

Moore also said his friend “had a tough life,” Moore said. Hoy had been adopted as a baby, but did not have a good relationship with his father, who, Moore said, turned him out of the house when he turned 18. Hoy ended up spending “a lot of nights” at Moore’s home, he said.

Hoy’s daughter needed special at-home care, and he and his wife moved to Las Vegas to be better able to provide for her, Moore said.

“That is what makes this whole thing so sad,” he said. “They worked their entire lives to save to have someone to take care of their daughter when they were gone.”

This story has been updated to clarify Robert Hoy’s position with the CIA.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on X.