Man gets 34 to life in beating death of ex-wife

Three children lost their mother last year, and their father will be in prison until they are well into adulthood.

Still in mourning, Fernando Moran sat next to his sister, Sarai, and half-brother, Alan Orellana, in a Clark County courtroom, as Marvin Moran was sentenced to 34 years to life in prison Monday for the brutal beating death of his ex-wife, 37-year-old Iris Moran.

“I don’t have anybody to call a dad,” 13-year-old Fernando Moran said through tears. “I don’t have anybody to call a mom. He destroyed my life. My mom, she was always important to me, and she always will be.”

District Judge Douglas Smith urged the children to rely on other relatives and friends for support and encouraged them to seek counseling.

“I firmly believe God will wrap his arms around you,” the judge said. “That’s the only thing I can say to the family: to embrace you and be a part of your lives.”

He turned to the defendant.

“I’ve never seen any remorse from you — none,” Smith said.

In January, a jury heard a 911 call made the day Iris Moran was killed.

“There’s a (expletive) dying,” said the caller, whose voice matched that of Marvin Moran. “Go help her out. Ain’t no joke.”

She was dead before emergency crews found her.

Marvin Moran, now 37, denied that he was man who made the call, but the jury convicted him of first-degree murder, kidnapping and burglary.

Prosecutors said Iris Moran was beaten to death June 13 in her southwest valley apartment, where she was found face up in a pool of her own blood, with her hands bound behind her back.

Two days before the slaying, Marvin Moran told his ex-wife, “If I find out you have a boyfriend, I’m going to kill you,” prosecutor Tierra Jones told jurors at trial. He then learned that she had been seeing another man.

Marvin Moran, who was born in El Salvador, stalked his ex-wife by placing a application on her cell phone so he could read her text messages, see who she called and track her location, according to prosecutors. She had divorced him just four months before she was killed.

Defense lawyers had argued that no forensic evidence pointed to Marvin Moran as his ex-wife’s killer. The couple had been married for 13 years and only had two notable quarrels before Iris Moran died, according to the defense.

Marvin Moran told jurors he was out looking for a place to hold a yard sale the morning his ex-wife was killed. He said he hoped to inquire with someone out walking a dog but never found anyone.

While Iris Moran worked as a housekeeper at MGM Grand, Marvin Moran didn’t have a job and pawned things to scrounge up cash. He had even pawned several garden tools hours before he said he was going to hold the yard sale.

Prosecutors said that Marvin Moran had left his own apartment early on the morning of the killing to catch his ex-wife as she returned home from her overnight shift. She had just kicked off her shoes when he stopped her near the front door of the apartment.

On Monday, the judge addressed a crowd of about 20 people with Iris Moran’s children.

“Sometimes we as judges think we can fix everything,” Smith said. “We can’t fix the hurt.”

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