Vegas man gets 15 to life for killing woman who wanted to evict him

A Las Vegas man who killed a woman and buried her in the Arizona desert after she tried to have him evicted was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison Tuesday.

Edward Kopp, 54, admitted to killing Sheila Linke early last year and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon.

Prosecutors said Kopp strangled and beat Linke, 53, on Jan. 26, 2014, after she tried to evict him and his girlfriend, Kathy Atteberry, from Linke’s home at 5624 Island Breeze Court, near Ann Road. Linke had met Atteberry through her job at the Clark County Water Reclamation District.

Kopp said Linke had screamed for them to leave her home and waved a knife at him on Jan. 26, according to a police report.

He told police he kicked Linke in the chest, and she fell to the ground, dropping the knife. Kopp said that when Linke talked about calling the police, he choked her until he thought she was dead, the report said. But Kopp said that when Linke “moved for the knife” again, he punched her in the face several times, wrapped a nylon rope around her neck and put a trash bag over her head.

Prosecutor Brad Turner said authorities found no physical evidence Linke ever threatened Kopp with a knife.

Kopp told police he forced Atteberry to help him move Linke into the back of his truck, where they hid her body in camping gear. The couple then drove to Johnny Fontane’s Beach House on Sahara Avenue for a couple of drinks — Linke’s body still in the truck — before driving to the desert in Mohave County, the report said.

Atteberry was not charged in the case.

Defense lawyer Frank Kocka said that after a search warrant was issued, Kopp went to his office and confessed to the killing “not with a guilty conscious, but with a heavy conscious.”

Kocka said Linke’s death was not premeditated and instead called the slaying a “heat-of-the-moment act of stupidity that got so out of control so fast that by the time it was already done and over with, that’s when he realized what had happened.”

On Tuesday, a sometimes sobbing Kopp told District Judge Kerry Earley: “I cannot defend my actions. The fault lies solely with me.”

Linke’s niece, Michelle Powell, who said she considered Linke motherly, called her “kind, loving and generous.”

“I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to hurt her,” Powell said.

The judge said she struggled to find a sentence that balanced Linke’s murder with Kopp’s remorse. Prosecutors had asked for 18 years to life in prison.

“There’s tears to go around from all of us,” Earley said. “I see sad faces everywhere. The judge feels sad. … The taking of a human life is something you can’t give back.”