Slaying victim helped others
Before Mary Wheaton's grandson was gunned down, he was the person in the neighborhood always willing to lend a hand.
"He would help everyone in the neighborhood," Wheaton said. "Cut their yard, put their garbage out. He would just run and take their bags and things."
Antonio Mooney, 25, visited his grandmother two or three times a week. But his visits to Wheaton came to an abrupt end Saturday night, when police say Mooney was shot by Frederick Desun Schneider, 26.
Schneider is charged with killing Mooney, the father of two young children, with a shot to the back. Wheaton said Mooney was visiting his girlfriend's apartment on 1555 Balzar Ave., near Lake Mead and Martin Luther King boulevards, when he noticed the door had been kicked in.
Police said Mooney confronted a group of men whom he believed had robbed the apartment. In the argument that followed, Schneider shot and killed Mooney, police said.
"They took a very good child's life," Wheaton said. "It's overwhelming the grief and hurt I'm feeling."
Schneider was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Wednesday on charges of murder with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon.
Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Lew Roberts said witnesses at the apartment complex identified Schneider as the shooter.
"We had people come forward who did the right thing," Roberts said.
Roberts described Mooney as a good person who had been involved in previous arguments with Schneider. Schneider is a gang member in a part of town that has heavy gang activity, Roberts said.
Wheaton doesn't fully accept the police version of the slaying.
"I can't see him getting into it with a gang member," Wheaton said of her grandson. "He's never argumentative."
Roberts said there might be additional arrests in the case.
Wheaton said Mooney worked driving trucks for a concrete company. He was a lifelong Las Vegas resident and father to a 4-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter.
A viewing for Mooney will be from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. today at Tried Stone Baptist Church, 621 W. Carey Ave. His funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at True Love Missionary Baptist Church, 1941 N. H. St.
Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.
