Las Vegas Crime News Roundup: Jury Gives Out Death Sentence

Posted on: October 28, 2024, 11:19h. 

Last updated on: October 28, 2024, 11:19h.

Ed Silverstein @casinoorgedsilv Read More
Expertise: Legal, Tribal Gaming.

Robert Brown is awaiting execution after recently getting convicted for a 2012 Las Vegas homicide.

Robert Brown
Robert Brown in a mug shot, pictured above. He was sentenced to death by a Las Vegas jury. (Image: LVMPD)

The sentence is the first new death penalty in more than five years in Nevada.

But he may avoid execution. Convicts sentenced to death in the state are still incarcerated while appeals work their way through the courts.

The jury decided to put Brown to death after about two hours of deliberation on October 9.

Brown, 54, was found guilty of murdering a girlfriend, Nichole Nick, 29.

He forced his way into her apartment, shot her, and fired shots toward her mother, Esther Maestas, and a three-year-old girl. Brown was arrested in 2014.

Brown was convicted of home invasion with a deadly weapon; burglary with a deadly weapon; murder with a deadly weapon; two counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon; eight counts of discharging a firearm within a structure; child abuse, neglect or endangerment with a deadly weapon; and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

“This is not a case where I would have thought that the death penalty would have been returned as compared to so many other cases,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson recently told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

There are some cases — the triple murders, the double murders of children — that you can see where a jury would come back death more easily than others… but it all depends on the makeup of the 12 people.”

But Brown’s legal team has argued he had been abused in his youth and he was given treatment for mental illness while in prison. He also tried to die by suicide.

Previously, Brown spent nine years in prison for a 1998 carjacking. He broke into his ex-wife’s car, and cut her body.

Cold Case Murderer Identified

Arthur Joseph Lavery has been identified as the killer of Melonie White 30 years after her body was found near Nevada’s Lake Mead.

White, 27, was last seen alive on August 26, 1994 near the corner of Fremont and 15th streets in Downtown Las Vegas. A day later, hikers found her body near the entrance to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

She had been strangled and beaten. Then, her body was taken into the desert.

In 2021, DNA evidence was sent to Othram Labs in Texas. On August. 26, Othram personnel notified the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) that the killer was Lavery.

Born in 1955, Lavery grew up in Las Vegas. He was 38 when the woman was killed. But in 2021, he passed away after contracting COVID.

“We have very limited information about Lavery,” LVMPD Lt. Jason Johansson said during a recent press conference.

Walter White, the victim’s brother, added, “She was my big sister, and we loved her very much.”

The effect of her death really shattered my mother … It took a long time to get back to a normal situation. It’s nice to have closure,” SFGate, a California news site, reported his comments.