Mother’s ex on trial in daughter’s rape, murder

Shortly after her 18-year-old daughter was found raped and killed in 2005, Debra Quarles' ex-boyfriend, Norman Flowers, started coming around her apartment.

Flowers expressed sympathy over her loss. He recommended that she start seeing a counselor to help her deal with the grief of losing her daughter Sheila "Pooka" Quarles. He drove Debra Quarles to two counseling appointments and asked questions about the investigation into her daughter's unsolved slaying.

His kind gestures, however, hid an uglier truth. Flowers, authorities say, is a serial killer and rapist who killed three women in Las Vegas, including Sheila Quarles.

Flowers is now on trial in District Court for her slaying. He is scheduled to stand trial next year on murder charges in the deaths of the other two women, Marilee Coote and Rena Gonzales.

During opening statements Thursday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Pam Weckerly said DNA evidence linked Flowers to Sheila Quarles' sexual assault.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Flowers, 34. He has pleaded not guilty to all the slayings.

The case has links to another high-profile set of killings in Las Vegas. On the morning Sheila Quarles was slain, she had consensual sex with a man named George Brass, who was a close friend of hers, authorities said.

Brass is currently facing murder charges in connection with an unrelated 2006 crime spree in Las Vegas that left three men dead.

Authorities said Brass, 23, and three other men targeted Hispanics and others in the Las Vegas valley in killings, robberies and home invasions. One of his co-defendants, Eugene Nunnery, has already been found guilty in one of those killings and sentenced to death.

Authorities don't believe Brass had any involvement in Sheila Quarles' sexual assault and slaying.

But Assistant Special Public Defender Randy Pike, who is representing Flowers, focused part of his opening statement on Brass.

Pike said, for example, that Brass told police he and Sheila Quarles had sex on the floor of her apartment the morning she was killed.

The case began on March 24, 2005. On that afternoon, Sheila Quarles was found by her mother and a neighbor lying face-up naked in a bathtub full of hot water at an apartment on Pecos Road near Washington Avenue.

Authorities said the victim was drowned and there was evidence of strangulation.

At the time of her death, Sheila Quarles was dating a woman who worked as a bus driver and was also in a sexual relationship with Brass, authorities said.

Debra Quarles testified Thursday that she didn't know about her daughter's sex partners.

Her slaying went unsolved for several months.

Then on May 3, 2005, Coote, 45, was found raped and strangled in her apartment in the 6600 block of Russell Road, near Boulder Highway. Her pubic hair had been singed and she had burns on her thighs. The television in her living room was left on a pay-per-view channel showing instructions on how to access pornographic videos.

About eight hours later, Las Vegas police returned to the same apartment complex on Russell Road after a 9-year-old boy reported his friend's mother was unconscious. The 24-year-old victim, Gonzales, was found strangled with a telephone cord inside her apartment, which is several hundred feet from Coote's.

Her shorts were pulled down slightly and her shirt was pulled up slightly, according to a Las Vegas police report. An autopsy report later showed that Gonzales had injuries to her genitals.

Police said all three women were loosely connected through Flowers.

Debra Quarles testified that she dated Flowers for several months in 2004. During that time, he had met her daughter, she said. Police were able to tie Flowers to the other two victims through a mutual acquaintance.

Police interviewed Flowers and took a DNA sample. His DNA matched that taken from samples from Sheila Quarles and Coote upon discovery of their bodies.

But Pike on Thursday also raised the specter of another possible suspect in Sheila Quarles' slaying.

About a month before she was killed, a new neighbor living near the Quarles' tried to strike up a friendship with Sheila Quarles.

Debra Quarles testified that she asked the man, identified only as Darnell, if he knew how old Sheila was and to stay away.

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