Two killed in ‘unprovoked’ stabbings on Las Vegas Strip are identified
The two people killed in a reportedly unprovoked stabbing attack Thursday near the Wynn hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip have been identified, authorities said.
Officers received a report of a stabbing with multiple victims in front of a casino in the 3100 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard around 11:42 a.m., the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a tweet.
Two people were dead and three were in critical condition, Las Vegas Metro Police Capt. Dori Koren said during a Thursday news briefing in front of the Wynn casino.
Brent Allan Hallett, 47, and Maris Mareen Digiovanni, 30, both of Las Vegas, were identified as the two people killed, according to the Clark County Office of the Coroner Medical Examiner.
Eight victims total were identified, and a suspect has been taken into custody, authorities said. The suspect, identified as Yoni Barrios, 32, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on suspicion of two counts of open murder with a deadly weapon and six counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, according to police.
“This was an isolated incident,” Las Vegas Metro Police Deputy Chief James LaRochelle said in a news release Thursday night. “All evidence indicates Barrios acted alone and there are no outstanding suspects at this time.”
The victims appeared to be a combination of tourists and locals, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.
Four members of a Merced family whose abduction was captured on surveillance video have been found dead, authorities confirmed.
A kitchen knife was recovered at the scene.
“The initial stabbing occurs on the sidewalk area [and] appears unprovoked,” LaRochelle said at a news conference. “There is no altercation beforehand.”
The suspect fled the scene southbound before heading east on Sands Avenue, pursued by “concerned citizens,” some of whom were contacting police.
The suspect was eventually stopped by a security guard and Las Vegas police officers.
Dewaun Turner, 47, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he saw five of the stabbings as he was walking home from his job at Resorts World, a hotel and casino just north of the crime scene.
Turner said he saw a man with a knife chasing two showgirls who were screaming for help, according to the Review-Journal.
After one of the performers slipped and fell, the man stabbed her, Turner recounted. The man then jumped up and stabbed the other showgirl as she tried to run away, he said.
The first showgirl who was stabbed was bleeding abundantly, Turner told the Review-Journal, and the second appeared to be less seriously wounded as she tried to apply pressure to stop the first woman’s bleeding.
“He wasn’t saying anything,” Turner said to the Review-Journal of the suspect, whom he reportedly saw stab a man and two other women after the showgirls.
Five Stockton residents and an Oakland man have been identified as the victims of a possible serial killer.
“We want to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the victims themselves,” LaRochelle said. “This is clearly a very tragic and hard to understand, hard to comprehend murder investigation that deeply impacts our community.”
“It’s very difficult in one-off events such as this to prevent it from happening without any intelligence that it may occur,” Lombardo said.
The investigation is ongoing, police said.
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