Second man arrested in September killing
A man allegedly involved in a late September home invasion-turned-killing was arrested by Las Vegas police on Monday.
Robert Figueroa, 28, was arrested at 5171 Casey Drive, near Tropicana Avenue and Sandhill Road, and charged with murder and burglary with a deadly weapon. He is being held at the Clark County Detention Center without bail.
Investigators believe on Sept. 21 Figueroa and another man, 32-year-old Jorge Mendoza, while wearing orange ski masks, kicked in the door of a west valley home armed with a shotgun and a handgun.
The two men were met by three residents, one of whom was also armed, according to an arrest report.
A “gun battle ensued” inside the home at 1661 Broadmere Street, near West Charleston Boulevard and South Hualapai Way, and 48-year-old Monty Gibson was shot and killed, the report said. Gibson was unarmed.
Figueroa and Mendoza fled, police said The other residents of the Broadmere home, Joseph and Stephen Larsen, believed that the men were wounded in the shootout.
Police responded to the area about 8:30 p.m. and followed a trail of blood to an abandoned 9 mm rifle and to Mendoza, who was hiding in a car about 100 yards from the scene of the shooting. He had suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg.
Police followed another trail of blood past the point where Mendoza was found, and discovered it stopped abruptly at the entrance to the neighborhood, where police believe Figueroa was picked up by his half-sister, Elizabeth Bird.
Bird later told police that Figueroa called her the night of the shooting and asked her to pick him up in the Summerlin area. She eventually took Figueroa to his apartment near Tropicana and Pecos avenues where she realized he was shot in the lower left lip and in the torso, the arrest report said.
Police learned Figueroa went to a California hospital where he was treated for gunshot wounds, a broken jaw, a broken tooth and a cut tongue and was discharged Sept. 24.
Figueroa told police when he was arrested that he was at the Broadmere home to buy marijuana when he saw the front door was open. He said he heard gunshots and fled, leaving his car parked in front of the house.
Meanwhile, Mendoza remained held at the county jail without bail on a first-degree murder charge in connection with the shooting.
Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Find her on Twitter: @lauxkimber
