Police arrest sister-in-law in deaths of pregnant woman, unborn child

Mommy is bleeding.

That’s what Ashley Indico’s blood-spattered 5-year-old son told a neighbor when he knocked on her door, according to a police report.

Indico, who was nine-months pregnant, was due to give birth on Oct 26. Las Vegas police said she and her unborn child were killed by her sister-in-law after an argument inside an apartment on Rancho Drive near Decatur Boulevard turned deadly Wednesday night. Indico’s 3-year-old daughter was also in the apartment.

The neighbor, Stephanie Vasquez, described hearing loud thuds coming from the neighboring apartment, followed by yelling between Indico and her sister-in-law, Elinor Indico. The knock on the door came shortly after.

Vasquez told police that she tried to check on Ashley Indico but could only hear Elinor Indico screaming from inside the apartment. Vasquez said she tried to open the unlocked door, but Elinor Indico slammed it shut, telling her to get out.

Vasquez said she heard a scream, followed by “loud ‘orgasmic’ moans from Elinor,” the police report said. Vasquez told police it sounded like Elinor Indico was enjoying what she was doing.

Police received a call from Elinor Indico just after 6 p.m. Wednesday. She said she had been stabbed inside her apartment at the Rancho Mesa complex.

The arriving officer found blood “all over the entry way” and smeared along the floor. Elinor Indico told the officer that Ashley Indico had stabbed her, lifting up her blouse to show two stab wounds that “were not bleeding but did appear to have dried blood around the wound,” the report said.

Elinor Indico, the sister of Ashley Indico’s husband, Aristeo Indico, was visibly upset but not crying, police said.

The officer went to the bedroom where Ashley Indico had locked herself in, according to Elinor Indico. After knocking and getting no response, the officer kicked in the door and found Ashley Indico facedown in a large pool of her own blood.

The officer found what he described as a multicolored, double-bladed knife between the victim’s legs.

Elinor Indico was transported to University Medical Center for her stab wounds, one of which doctors said slightly damaged her intestines.

A Clark County coroner’s investigator noted that Ashley Indico had stab wounds in the back of her head, side of her neck, her left arm, which was broken, and a post-mortem stab wound on her left ankle, according the police reports. The coroner determined her manner of death was a homicide.

At the hospital, Elinor Indico admitted to detectives that the knife, which she called a “ninja knife,” was hers and that she kept it in her suitcase.

She told police that she was acting in self-defense and that Ashley Indico initiated the fight after finding the knife and threatened to kill her.

Elinor Indico, who Aristeo Indico said had martial arts training, said she was able to take the knife back after Ashley Indico stabbed her in the stomach.

Elinor Indico told police she thrust the knife at Ashley Indico, and while she didn’t see blood, “thought it was successful since Ashley said, ‘Ow!’ ” according to the report.

Elinor Indico said Ashley Indico got the knife back and went “stab crazy,” the report said.

The husband told police that Elinor Indico called him last month and told him that she was going to lose the house she was living in. He drove to Granada Hills, Calif., and brought her back to Las Vegas to temporarily live with him.

He told police that his sister had a history of violence and drugs. He told her she could not live with his family if she was using drugs.

He got his sister a job, but she stopped going and lost the position shortly after, reports said.

He also told police that he found his sister smoking ground-up pills in their bathroom.

On Monday, he told his sister that she had until Friday to move out, which he said escalated the already heated relationship between his wife and his sister.

Elinor Indico, who was still hospitalized for her injuries Thursday, was booked in absentia on one count each of murder and manslaughter.

Kristi Jourdan, spokeswoman for the Clark County Department of Family Services, couldn’t confirm whether the children were taken into protective custody. She referred media to a child fatality disclosure that will be released on the state’s Division of Child and Family Services’ website.