Man arrested in machete assault

Las Vegas police arrested a man Friday afternoon in connection with a bloody machete attack the night before that left a woman dead and her two children maimed.

Police booked Victor Cruz, 29, on murder and attempted murder charges after catching him in an apartment complex near Tropicana Avenue and Mountain Vista Street.

Investigators believe Cruz, also known as Victor Orlando Cruz-Garcia, attacked a 46-year-old woman and her two children after she told him to leave their apartment because he was drunk, homicide Lt. Lew Roberts said.

Cruz and his girlfriend shared the apartment with the family, he said.

Alex Martinez, 22, who lives in the unit above at the Cabana Park apartments near Bonanza Road and Eastern Avenue, said he was in bed when he heard the thumping sounds of a fight.

When Martinez peered out a window, he saw a woman bleeding on the ground and a bleeding girl running around the building.

Not far away, Martinez saw a man on the ground covering his head with his hands as the attacker whaled on him seven or eight times with a foot-and-a-half long machete.

The attacker didn't say anything. He just kept hitting, Martinez said.

After taking the blows, the man on the ground grabbed his dangling arm, which was nearly severed below the elbow, and ran while the blood poured like water, Martinez said.

"It was very ugly," he said.

Roberts said the blood trail led across the parking lot and around some cars, as if the victim were running from the machete-wielding man.

Cruz disappeared before police arrived, but investigators learned he had an acquaintance near Tropicana and Mountain Vista and flooded the area with patrol officers Friday. One of the officers spotted Cruz in an apartment complex about 1:30 p.m. and arrested him.

Meanwhile, the woman died at University Medical Center. Her 12-year-old daughter was in critical condition with severe cuts and trauma to her head and face, though she had been talking Friday, Roberts said.

The woman's 27-year-old son was also in critical condition after doctors reattached his partially severed arm and a severed finger found at the scene, he said.

"It's one of the worst I've seen," Roberts said of the crime.

By Friday afternoon, most of the blood had been cleaned in the complex on Aster Lane, but a few dried blood patches on the light gray gravel served as reminders of the attack.

A handful of children on their way home from Lunt Elementary stopped to gawk at the stained concrete outside the apartment with Bill Richardson campaign stickers on the window.

In the window next door, someone had hanged Christmas lights and wrote the words "Feliz Navidad."

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0281.