Convicted killer on trial in slaying

Eugene Nunnery is a dead man walking.

The 29-year-old convicted killer was sentenced to die last year for killing a man during a robbery that netted him $3.

The slaying was part of a monthlong crime spree Nunnery and several men carried out in the Las Vegas Valley, authorities said. Three people were killed.

Nunnery appeared in District Court Thursday for the opening of his second murder trial. He is on trial for shooting and killing a drug dealer in the Meadows Village area in 2006. Authorities also accuse him of trying to execute a 14-year-old pregnant witness to the shooting. Nunnery is also facing attempted murder charges for shooting another person in the back during the incident.

Like his first murder trial, prosecutors are again seeking the death penalty against Nunnery.

It doesn't end there.

Nunnery is scheduled to be tried for a third slaying in September. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in that case too.

Prosecutors said the reason they are seeking to try, convict and condemn Nunnery to death in three separate cases is insurance. Authorities want to be certain Nunnery is put to death should the Nevada Supreme Court overturn one of his death sentences on appeal.

This punishment is reserved for the worst of the worst. And Nunnery, authorities said, fits that description.

Nunnery was raised in California. His mother was a prostitute and his father abandoned him and his two younger siblings. He passed through more than a dozen foster homes. During his first murder trial, a doctor testified that Nunnery suffered brain damage from fetal alcohol syndrome.

During the 2006 crime spree, authorities said Nunnery killed three people and tried to kill eight others. Two were slain in robberies.

He is currently on trial for killing Raphael Alfred, 24, in August 2006. During opening statements, county prosecutor Robert Daskas told the jury that Nunnery had bought about $50 worth of marijuana from the victim.

But Nunnery believed Alfred shortchanged him during the deal. He returned to Alfred's home in the area near Industrial Road and Sahara Avenue behind the Stratosphere.

Nunnery confronted Alfred and the two men argued, Daskas said. Alfred wouldn't refund his money but agreed to give him two crack cocaine rocks instead.

It wasn't enough. Nunnery pulled out a handgun and shot Alfred several times, Daskas said.

"The facts are undisputable," he told the jury.

Nunnery then tried to kill Tiffany Arciga, a 14-year-old who was hanging out with the victim during the shooting, she told the jury Thursday. Defense attorneys said Arciga was involved in the drug trade.

He grabbed her, put the barrel of the gun to her head and pulled the trigger, Arciga said. But she said she jerked her head away when Nunnery discharged his gun and the bullets missed her.

She received gunpowder burns and later said a bullet grazed her neck.

Nunnery later told police he was as surprised as anyone that he missed shooting Arciga and didn't kill her, Daskas said.

"God saved that little girl's life," Nunnery later told police, according to a recorded statement played for the jury Thursday.

One of Nunnery's attorneys, deputy special public defender Patricia Palm, told the jury that Nunnery was "rash, unconsidered and impulsive."

But he shouldn't be found guilty of first-degree murder, she said. Nunnery has pleaded not guilty to the killings.

His trial is expected to last at least a week.

Contact reporter David Kihara at dkihara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039.