Inmate who made Las Vegas headlines in 1981 dies in Nevada prison
Few in Las Vegas are likely to remember the name John Odoms, but he made headlines more than four decades ago.
The 72-year-old, who was serving a life sentence in connection with the 1981 attempted murder of a Las Vegas auto repair shop owner, died Monday night at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Odoms was committed to the prison out of Clark County on Feb. 4, 1982, the agency said in a news release. His next of kin have been notified of his death, and an autopsy will be scheduled.
Court records show that Odoms, also known as John B. Odom, was sentenced in 1982 after being found guilty of attempted murder with a deadly weapon and burglary.
During the trial, the prosecutor said the state would file a motion to determine that the 36-year-old Odoms, identified in the newspaper as Odom, was a “habitual criminal” eligible for a life sentence, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported at the time.
Odoms was convicted of shooting Robert “Bob” Koenigsfeld, the owner of a downtown automobile repair shop, three times in the stomach and chest.
Koenigsfeld’s son, David Koenigsfeld, told the Review-Journal in November 1981 that his father believed a man with whom he had a “long-standing feud” was going to hire someone to kill him.
An unidentified employee at Koenigsfeld’s shop, Bob’s Garage, told the Review-Journal that two men drove up to the garage on the morning of Nov. 20, 1981, the day of the shooting, which he described as “like a contract killing.”
“One guy got out and casually walked into the garage and without saying anything shot him in the stomach and chest,” the employee said. “Bob was welding at the time. The guy used a .25-caliber ‘Saturday Night Special.’”
Koenigsfeld was hospitalized and survived the shooting, although he had lost his business by the time of the 1982 trial, the Review-Journal reported at the time. He was identified as Robert Koeningsfield in some articles.
It was unclear whether police identified someone who ordered Koenigsfeld’s killing. The man who drove to the garage with Odoms was cleared as a suspect, the Review-Journal reported.
It wasn’t just the shooting that attracted headlines, but the hourslong search for Owens that day.
Review-Journal photographers captured close-up images of Metropolitan Police Department officers and SWAT team members in position with pistols drawn at the now-closed Beverly Palms Hotel, at 218 S. Sixth St., where Odoms was believed to be holed up inside.
About 150 people watched as law enforcement fired tear gas into a hotel room, which was empty, the Review-Journal reported. Police later found Odoms sleeping in a vacated downtown apartment on the night of the shooting.
Court records and newspaper articles show that Odoms was also convicted for pandering in Clark County in June 1980, “the first such conviction in Clark County since 1938,” the Review-Journal reported.
Odoms, identified as 40-year-old John Benjamin Odom in the 1980 article, was arrested in Las Vegas after being paroled from Florida State Prison for only 19 days.
He was arrested after trying to pay a woman for sex and threatening her, saying he would “find her, mutilate her, kill her and leave her to rot in the desert sun,” if she didn’t work as a sex worker for him, the Review-Journal reported at the time.
Odoms had other felony convictions in Las Vegas, Hawaii and Florida, the Review-Journal reported in 1980.
He attempted to repeal his life sentence for attempted murder multiple times, but was accused of being “engaged in vexatious litigation,” Las Vegas Justice Court records show.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Mike Shoro contributed to this report.
