Road rage led to northeast Las Vegas killing, police say

A man found shot to death in a crashed car in the northeast valley earlier this month had been in a road rage chase with another motorist, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.

But police alleged that the gunshots that killed 36-year-old Angel Corona came from a third vehicle that belonged to a man who purportedly showed up to help his friend, according to an arrest report.

The friend told detectives that he called Tony Allen Archuletta, 42, to tell him about the chase, but he denied asking for help, police said.

On Friday, Archuletta was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on one count of open murder. He is being held on a $300,000 bail, jail records show.

An employee of a business in the 4400 block of East Lone Mountain Road called 911 early on March 2 after he found a crashed car against a security booth near an industrial area and Nellis Air Force Base, police said.

Paramedics found Corona dead in the driver’s seat and his passenger with life-threatening injuries, police said. It wasn’t clear if she also was shot or injured in the crash.

Detectives pieced together their investigation with the help of surveillance video, which showed two vehicles chasing each other in various parts of east Las Vegas late on March 1, police said.

“The two vehicles appeared to be following one another and cutting in front of each other at high rates of speed,” police wrote about one of the interactions caught on camera.

Both cars were captured arriving to the shooting scene at 10:36 p.m., police said. And then “a dark colored pickup truck drove eastbound on Lone Mountain past the two cars as the victim vehicle drove straight into the guard shack.”

Police said that the gunshots came from the truck.

Almost two hours passed before the 911 call was made that led to the discovery of Corona’s body and his passenger.

On March 5, detectives tracked down Archuletta’s friend, who insisted that he was a victim of Corona’s, police said.

He said Corona had hit his car on U.S. Highway 95 between Charleston Boulevard and Boulder Highway and took off, triggering the initial chase, according to police.

He told police that he called Archuletta to tell him about the chase while he was driving near Archuletta’s house, but noted that he didn’t ask Archuletta for help.

That same day, ballistic analysis linked the gun used in Corona’s shooting to a recent road incident in Utah in which a son of Archuletta’s was arrested for allegedly brandishing the weapon registered to Archuletta, police said.

Two days later, police interviewed Archuletta, who said that he was asleep at the time of the shooting and that one of his own sons might have been involved in the shooting, according to the report.

Police said they believed two different guns had been used in the shooting, since they found remnants of two types of ammunition.

Archuletta’s phone records and video placed him and his truck at the shooting scene, police said.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.