Judge assigns lawyer for man accused in fatal hatchet attack
Siblings accused in a fatal hatchet attack of a 43-year-old man were back in a Las Vegas courtroom Friday.
A judge assigned the Clark County Special Public Defender’s office to represent 22-year-old Hector Gutierrez, who is charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder along with his sister, 32-year-old Maria Hernandez.
The Idaho woman and her brother, who is from California, were arrested Monday in Las Vegas after her husband, Enrique Gil Hernandez, was found nearly decapitated.
Prosecutor Frank Coumou has said the facts of the brutal attack on Enrique Hernandez point to a case in which “we would consider” pursuing the death penalty for the siblings.
Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman has ordered them held without bail Thursday.
Maria Hernandez told authorities she wanted her husband dead after he discovered she was having an affair, according to police.
Police said she had planned the slaying for about a month and held her husband down while Gutierrez attacked him with a hatchet.
She initially called police near the intersection of Buffalo Drive and Eldora Avenue, just south of Sahara Avenue, about 2:30 a.m., a police report said. She and her husband were having car trouble, she said, when someone hacked him.
The woman told police that she and her husband, with whom she has four children, were in town for a family member’s quinceañera. They drove in from Idaho on Saturday for the birthday party later that night. Gutierrez was in town from California.
Gutierrez and Maria Hernandez are due back in court next week.
Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker
