Erich Nowsch’s suspected getaway driver arrested

The second man indicted in the killing of Las Vegas woman Tammy Meyers was arrested Friday.

Derrick Andrews, 26, is suspected of driving the car Erich Nowsch was riding in when Meyers was shot. A prosecutor said the deadly chain of events started when Meyers saw Andrews’ car and mistakenly thought it was one that had bumped into her car earlier that night.

Andrews faces charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and discharge of a firearm from or within a structure or vehicle. A Clark County grand jury indicted him this week. He was arrested Friday afternoon at his home in Summerlin and was being held without bail.

Defense lawyer Martin Hart consulted with Andrews over the past few weeks, but has not been retained as his attorney.

“He knew the detectives were looking into him,” Hart said. “It’s not out of the blue. He knew this was coming. He hasn’t gone anywhere.”

Prosecutors also have added a charge of conspiracy to commit murder against Nowsch, who has been in jail for a month.

Meyers suffered a gunshot wound to the head Feb. 12 after a shootout in front of her home, a killing that was initially attributed to “road rage” before the messier facts became clear.

Nowsch, 19, faces charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and discharging a gun into a vehicle in connection with the slaying of 44-year-old Meyers, a mother of four who died two days after being shot. He was arrested a week after the shooting and is being held at the Clark County Detention Center without bail.

A woman who came to the door at Andrews’ home Friday asked a reporter to leave and said, without opening the door, that no one at the house wanted to talk. Neighbors said Andrews lives with his mother and grandmother.

Luis Muldonado, who has lived on the street since 2013, said he left home at 9 a.m. and returned at 1 p.m. to find a swarm of police cars around a house four doors down.

Muldonado said the neighborhood is peaceful, with residents who are friendly but largely keep to themselves. He said he knew Andrews, who would often stop by. The two talked mostly about cars.

Muldonado said he has seen Andrews driving two different sedans since meeting him in 2013, but never saw the silver Audi authorities say Andrews drove the day of the shooting.

“It’s kind of shocking that he might have been involved in something at that level,” Muldonado said.

Another neighbor, Rich Cieri, said Andrews graduated high school nearly a decade ago, but never took off after that. An aspiring car mechanic, Andrews often invited friends to his home, Cieri said, and worked on their cars in his garage.

“Several cars have gone through his garage,” Cieri said. “He’d just been there forever.”

A FATAL MISTAKE

Nowsch told police he was standing in a park across the street from Johnson Junior High School Feb. 12 when he noticed a green car that seemed to be following him. He thought the car was carrying people who had threatened him and his family.

Nowsch called friends and asked for their help, according to police, then climbed into a silver Audi with another man he had refused to identify.

Meyers, who was in a green Buick Park Avenue, came up behind them and followed as they drove away, prosecutor David Stanton said.

Brandon Meyers, with a 9mm Beretta in his lap, was with his mother in the Buick at the time, and reported “seeing a bunch of flashes and loud sounds as a gun being shot towards us.”

He hunkered down in the passenger seat as his mother drove away. When they arrived home, he noticed the silver car still following them.

He said he ran toward the house but was about 20 feet from the door when he heard gunshots and returned fire.

The suspect’s sedan sped away, and Brandon Meyers ran toward the driver’s side door of his mother’s car as she collapsed in the street.

Prosecutors said the shooting might have been a result of mistaken identity. Around 10 p.m. that night, Meyers was teaching her 15-year-old daughter, Kristal Meyers, to drive in the school’s parking lot.

After the 50-minute lesson was finished, a man driving a gray sedan swerved around their car, bumped into them, stepped out of his car and threatened to kill them, Kristal Meyers told a grand jury. That person was neither Nowsch nor Andrews, prosecutors said.

Detective Clifford Mogg testified that there were no obvious signs the Meyers’ car had been in a collision.

“I would imagine that’s a stressful situation for anybody, let alone a 15-year-old girl,” Stanton said. “So her ability to remember certain things, I think, would be challenging. I have not found any inconsistencies in the statements of Kristal Meyers that has any effect or relevence to what happens after that incident.”

Tammy Meyers then drove home and called for her son to help look for the man who had threatened her, according to grand jury testimony.

When Meyers spotted Andrews’ silver Audi, she believed it was the same car she encountered earlier and started to follow.

“Ms. Meyers ultimately was mistaken,” Stanton said. “Coincidentally, now you have kind of a series of dominoes falling with Ms. Meyers pulling behind what she thinks is the earlier car.”

Nowsch was in the passenger seat of Andrews’ car with a Ruger .45-caliber handgun.

Andrews drove a few hundred yards before stopping the car in the middle of the street. Nowsch leaned out the passenger window and fired at Meyers’ Buick about two blocks away.

Meyers turned and headed back home, and Andrews and Nowsch gave chase.

Meyers stopped her car in the street outside her home, where she was caught in a hail of 24 rounds from Nowsch’s gun, and died two days later, Stanton said.

Nowsch and Andrews sped away, switched cars and then deleted each other from their cell phones “in an attempt to hide their communications,” Stanton said.

Nowsch told investigators that he learned only later that the victim was someone he knew, Tammy Meyers. They lived within a block of each other. He had been to her house for dinner, and also knew Kristal.

It was unclear Friday whether Andrews also knew the Meyers family.

Andrews, who is unemployed, was staying with his mother at the time of the shooting, Stanton said.

The Meyers shooting isn’t the first time Andrews was accused of being a getaway driver. Six years ago, Andrews admitted to driving away in a gold Toyota from the Fashion Outlets in Primm after another man stole purses and wallets from the Coach Factory Store.

He was arrested at Bargain Pawn, 1901 N. Las Vegas Boulevard, in that case after trying to purchase a gun.

The case was closed in 2010 after Andrews paid $1,626.98 in restitution.

Review-Journal reporter Chris Kudialis contibuted to this report.

Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker