WHAT HAPPENED IN VEGAS: HIGH PROFILE CRIME
By Howard T. Brody

 

For 10 minutes on the evening of October 1, 2017, the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the U.S. took place when bullets rained down on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m.
 
Putting all the conspiracy theories aside – and there are plenty of them – and going with the official story, a 64-year-old lone gunman named Stephen Paddock from Mesquite, Nevada, fired more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition from a 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, killing 58 people and wounding 422 others. The ensuing panic that the gunfire brought with it escalated the number of injured to 851. About an hour after the attack, the gunman was found dead in the room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. To this day, Paddock’s motive officially remains undetermined.
 
The tragic incident brought Las Vegas residents and visitors together and created what would become known as #VegasStrong, a coalition movement of organizers focused on unifying the community. While our resilient little town of two million continues to recover from that day, it is a stark reminder of what the underbelly of Sin City can bring.

And while some TV shows and movies may show the elegance of committing a felony in Las Vegas, there is nothing glamorous about some of the major crimes that have taken place here.

And so, with 21 being a lucky number at the blackjack tables, in addition to the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting, here is part one of a two-part series where we examine most notorious crimes that have ever taken place in our fair city.
 
Kidnapping and Robbery
1. The Kevyn Wynn Kidnapping
In July 1993, Kevyn Wynn, the 26-year-old daughter of gaming mogul Steve Wynn was kidnapped from her home and held for ransom. The kidnappers demanded $2.5 million for her safe return but ended up settling for $1.45 million as Wynn told them that was all the cash he was able to pull together. As instructed, Wynn put the money in a plastic bag and left it in a car a few miles from the Vegas strip. After picking up the money, the kidnappers called Wynn as promised and told him where at McCarran International Airport Kevyn could be found. The young woman was found tied up in the trunk of a car and although shaken from the ordeal, was safe. The two kidnappers were caught when one of them, Ray Cuddy, walked into a Newport Beach, California luxury car dealership with $200,000 in cash and tried to buy a new Ferrari. Having raised suspicion, Cuddy returned to sign the papers a few days later, the FBI nabbed him. Cuddy and his accomplice, Jacob Sherwood, were found guilty of extortion, money laundering and other charges stemming from the kidnapping. Sherwood was released from prison in 2010, while Cuddy was set free in 2015. A third accomplice, Anthony Watkins, cooperated with authorities and was sentenced to 6½ years. Nearly $1 million of the ransom was recovered.

2. The Former Football Superstar
Without a doubt O.J. Simpson is one of the most divisive figures when it comes to discussing the criminal justice system and part of that comes from the opinion of many that he should have been found guilty in the 1994 California murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, to which he was acquitted. O.J. also happens to be at the center of one of Sin City’s highest profiled robbery cases. In 2007, five men, led by Simpson, entered a hotel room at Palace Station where two sports memorabilia dealers were selling several items that used to belong to Simpson. One of the dealers, Bruce Fromong, said that the group broke into his hotel room and stole some of the memorabilia at gunpoint. Simpson was arrested for his involvement in the robbery and held without bail. While Simpson claimed no one in his entourage had a gun and that he was just trying to recover items that had been stolen from him years earlier, his defense fell apart when an audio recording of the robbery surfaced. Some of Simpson’s accomplices agreed to become prosecution witnesses in exchange for lighter sentences. When Simpson refused a plea deal that would have sent him to prison from two to five years, the case went to trial. On October 3, 2008 — exactly 13 years to the day that he was acquitted of the murders in California – Simpson was found guilty on all 12 counts against him ranging from burglary and first-degree kidnapping to robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Two months later Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison. In July 2017, testimony was provided to a parole board that characterized Simpson’s decision to commit the robbery as “misguided.” That testimony, which helped Simpson get his release, came from Fromong.

3 & 4. The Bellagio Bandits
In 2000, while one man served as a lookout, two other men entered the Bellagio Hotel and Casino dressed in body armor, jumped over the cashier cage counter and fled the scene with $160,000 in cash and chips. The three men who perpetrated the robbery – Oscar Sanchez Cisneros, Luis Suarez and Jose Manuel Vigoa – were quickly arrested. Vigoa, as it turned out, was responsible for other casino robberies as well as the murder of two armored truck drivers. Of the three, Vigoa was sentenced to life in prison without parole, Suarez got 15 years, and Cisneros hung himself four months into his sentence. Following the heist, MGM Resorts, owners of the Bellagio, installed bars around the cashier cages at all of their properties. But despite the threesome being caught, that didn’t deter another would-be crook from trying something similar 10 years later. In December 2010, five days after robbing the Suncoast Casino poker room of $19,000 in cash, the same bandit decided to double down when he rode his motorcycle up to the Bellagio in an attempt for a bigger payday. Never taking off his helmet, the thief walked inside, strolled over to a craps table and after brandishing a gun, grabbed a bunch of chips. Running outside, the robber jumped back on his bike and took off, quickly disappearing into traffic on the Strip. His score was a cool $1.5 million. However, the thief had one problem: How was he going to convert the stolen chips into cash? After returning to the scene of the crime to cash in some of the chips and tossing a $25,000 chip into a Salvation Army charity bucket for the holidays, 29-year-old Anthony Carleo went online and tried to sell some of the chips using the screen name “Biker Bandit.” Finding a buyer, Carleo arranged to meet the men at the Bellagio. But, what he didn’t know was that the buyers were undercover police officers. When he showed up at the Bellagio for the meeting, he was immediately arrested. Carleo served nine years in prison for the armed robbery.

5. The Armored Car Driver
In October 1993, a 21-year-old armored car driver for Loomis Armored Car Company named Heather Tallchief drove away from the Circus Circus Casino with more than $2.95 million inside. When Tallchief disappeared, it was thought that she had gotten lost or stuck in traffic. As time passed, they feared perhaps she had gotten into an accident as a security camera showed her leaving the casino with no signs of foul play. When Loomis couldn’t find her or the van, they called the authorities as they realized she took off with the cash. When the FBI searched her apartment, they found fingerprints belonging to 48-year-old convicted murderer Roberto Solis, who in 1969, shot and killed an armored car guard during a failed robbery. While behind bars, Solis wrote several books. After he was paroled in 1987, he met Tallchief in San Francisco where they not only started a relationship but began planning their crime. Within two hours of the robbery, the couple arrived at McCarran International Airport disguised as an elderly couple with Tallchief going so far as to show up in a wheelchair. The couple packed three suitcases full money and, according to authorities, shipped the rest of the money to their final destination. Three days after the robbery, the FBI tracked Tallchief and Solis to Denver, and just as they were getting close, the couple vanished again. Authorities got a lead that they may have gone to Florida, but the lead turned cold. Two weeks after the robbery the FBI recovered the armored car as it was found in a building that Solis had rented and where the pair had set up a fake business, so nobody would question why a was being stored there. Authorities also found shipping supplies for the money. This case became so famous it aired as part of an FBI alert on May 25, 1994, and then expanded on the October 2, 2001 episode of the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries.” The case was also featured on “America’s Most Wanted” and “Dateline.” It appeared to be a perfect crime until something unexpected happened. In 2005 Tallchief showed up at a Las Vegas courthouse and turned herself in. She made a statement that said she was tired of running and hiding from the law after living in the Netherlands with her 10-year-old son. Giving a sworn statement, Tallchief said that Solis brainwashed her and that she left him after she learned of her pregnancy. In 2006 Tallchief was sentenced five years and three months. She was paroled from prison in 2010. Solis has never been found, and none of the stolen money was ever recovered.

6. The Carefree Cashier
In September 1992, William John Brennan, a sportsbook cashier at the Stardust casino, walked out of his place of employment with a bag filled with $500,000 in cash and chips. None of the surveillance cameras captured him leaving the casino, and management at the Stardust had no idea that their long-time employee had just walked off with a cool half-million dollars of their money. On Brennan’s part, it was the perfect robbery. There was no weapon used, and nobody got hurt. Well, nobody got hurt physically. In some aspects, the robbery boggles the mind as the heist shouldn’t have been possible at all, considering the security procedures that casinos have in place. Still, the robbery indeed took place, and when management realized what happened, they tried contacting Brennan to no avail. As for law enforcement, they didn’t have a clue where he disappeared to. While in most cases criminals of this nature are caught by returning to the scene of the crime or when they attempt to contact friends or family members, Brennan didn’t do any of these. As a matter of fact, according to co-worker Richard Saber, a sportsbook manager at the Stardust, he had no friends at all. “He was basically a total complete loner,” Saber told police at the time. “He lived alone with his cat.” Even if his cat was his only friend at the time, Brennan surely wasn’t coming back to Vegas for the feline. So, wherever the 34-year-old bandit went, he must’ve taken the cat with him. Was it the perfect crime? The fact remains that Brennan was never caught and remains at large on 12 counts of felony.

Murder

7. “The Mad Indian”
Back in the old west, the legend of Queho ran deep. He was a Native American outlaw who was considered an outcast, often being called a “half-breed” by his own people as his father was a Paiute and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a Cocopah. He was accused of murdering many people, including his half-brother, and the sensational press at the time dubbed him “The Mad Indian.” But was he the notorious outlaw that legend makes him out to be? If we consider the prejudice that was commonplace during this era and the fact that many of the deaths attributed to Queho were highly speculative, it is nearly impossible to determine if the Native American was Nevada’s first recognized mass murderer or simply a scapegoat for time. Let’s be clear; Queho was indeed a killer. There’s no denying that fact. But back in the 19th century, many men were killers as in those days “justifiable homicide” was a part of everyday life. However, because Queho was a Native American and the fact the deaths took place in a time and location where white men made the rules, there was nothing justifiable about a man of his creed who killed white people. Because there were so many deaths surrounding Queho, settlers believed his presence sullied the land they lived on, and they referred to it as “The Curse of Queho.” After the murder of an El Dorado Canyon miner’s wife, Las Vegas authorities offered what amounted to a $3,000 bounty on Queho, dead or alive. In 1940, after eluding capture for more than 20 years, prospectors found what was believed to be his remains in a cave near the Colorado River. The Las Vegas chapter of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks purchased Queho’s body and displayed it in their lodge at an annual festival until 1962 when they disposed of it at a local dumpsite. There, police identified the remains and interred it at Cathedral Canyon. In his 1998 book, “Searchlight, The Camp that Didn’t Fail,” former U.S. Senator Harry Reid devoted an entire chapter to Queho in which he called the outlaw “The Renegade Indian.”
 
8 & 9. The Cabby and the Casino Executive
Two notorious murders separated by time but with one common denominator – Ted Binion. Ted was the son of Las Vegas legend Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino and well known for creating the World Series of Poker in the 1940s. In late 1967, a cab driver named Marvin Shumate devised a plot to kidnap the 24-year-old younger Binion and then extort money from Benny. Not very smart considering the casino magnate’s illegal activities, including murders, were already well known at the time. But Shumate was sure his plan would work as his son was friends with Ted and he used the information provided by his boy to set up the kidnapping. However, Shumate needed a partner to pull off the job and tried to recruit a fellow cabby and small-time hood to help him. When the plan revealed that Ted would never be released and Shumate had intended to kill him, the other driver backed out and, most likely fearing for his own life, went to Benny and ratted him out. That December, Shumate’s body was discovered in the mountains of Las Vegas with a bullet wound to his head and a shotgun blast to his chest. While the murder has never officially been solved, it is widely believed that Benny ordered a hit on Shumate after being told of the plot. Although Ted escaped a grisly death at the time, unfortunately, he would not escape the Grim Reaper, who caught up with him 31 years later. In 1998, Ted was found dead on a small mattress that was on the floor of his Las Vegas estate, an apparent suicide victim as a cocktail of illegal and prescription drugs was found in his system. The toxicology report revealed that he died of a combination of the prescription sedative Xanax and heroin, with traces of Valium. However, while it was already well known that Ted had a heroin addiction as he had been removed from management at the casino for that reason, Las Vegas investigators suspected that the crime scene had been staged, and six months later, reclassified Ted’s death as a homicide. In June 1999, Binion’s girlfriend Sandy Murphy and her lover Rick Tabish were arrested for his murder. Initially, the pair were convicted, but in 2003 they were granted a new trial, and while each was acquitted of murder in the 2004 retrial, they were found guilty on lesser charges of burglary and grand larceny connected with the Binion case. Tabish also was convicted of use with a deadly weapon. Murphy was sentenced to time served and did not return to prison while Tabish was released in 2010.
 
 
10. The Boxing Champion
In six years, Charles L. Liston went from being a national anti-hero and boxing champion of the world to a Las Vegas gangster who drove around town in a pink Cadillac, selling drugs and making collection visits. When his wife Geraldine discovered his body in January 1971 after returning home from a two-week trip, police ruled Liston’s death as an accidental drug overdose. But those who knew Sonny Liston thought otherwise. Sonny had been a professional boxer from 1953 to 1970 and achieved a record of 33-1 before winning the world title from Floyd Patterson with a first-round knockout in 1962. In 1964, Liston lost his championship to a young upstart named Cassius Clay, who would later change his name to Muhammad Ali, in a fight he was heavily favored to win. Despite the loss, Liston continued fighting, and at some point, it is believed that he became a bill collector in a Las Vegas loansharking ring. Rumors also began circulating that Liston was hooked on heroin, but many who were close to him, including his wife, said he was afraid of needles. Although the coroner’s toxicology report showed there was an insufficient amount of heroin in Liston’s system to kill him, the authorities stuck to their story. Still, despite the official explanation for his death, many believe that Liston was murdered by the mob, a fact corroborated in the 2013 book “Warjac: Wanted,” written by Greg Swaim about his late father, Dale Cline, aka James John Warjac, the Mob hit man. In the book, Swaim claimed Warjac helped kill Liston by a forced heroin overdose, a popular mob execution technique at the time. There have been other rumors surrounding Liston’s death, and many of them are covered in the 2016 book, “The Murder of Sonny Liston: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights” by Shaun Assael. The book treats the boxer’s death as a cold case and investigates the circumstances that led to Liston’s early demise.

11. The Retired FBI Agent
George William “Bill” Coulthard was assigned to Las Vegas as the city’s first resident FBI agent from 1939 to 1945. As a lawyer, Coulthard had a private practice from 1946 to 1972. He was a Nevada assemblyman from 1951 to 1954 and was president of the Nevada State Bar Association. In Las Vegas, there is even a street name after him. His name was not unfamiliar to those who read the newspaper. In July 1972 Coulthard made headlines again, but this time for a very nefarious reason. After turning on the ignition to his car, a bomb exploded inside of a downtown Las Vegas parking garage where his office was located, instantly killing him. It was said that the blast was so powerful at the Bank of Nevada building, that it tore a hole in the floor of the concrete. At the time of his death, Coulthard was not only a prominent attorney in Sin City, but he was an astute businessman and developer who owned part of the land that the Horseshoe Casino was built on. The FBI believed that the Horseshoe Casino’s owner, Benny Binion, actually ordered the hit on Coulthard because the former agent didn’t renew Coulthard’s lease on the property. The FBI was joined by the ATF, the Clark County Sherriff’s Department and the Las Vegas Police Department in the investigation of the high-profile murder, and despite a $75,000 reward being put up for information leading to an arrest, none were ever made. While many leads turned out to be wild goose chases, to this day the case remains open. The incident inspired a scene in the 1995 movie “Casino” when Robert De Niro’s character, Sam “Ace” Rothstein, is the victim of an attempted murder when his car explodes with him in it.
 
12. The Union Boss
From the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, Al Bramlet enjoyed being the head of the Las Vegas Culinary Workers Local Union 226 – one of the most powerful unions in the country, representing a large number of service jobs in Sin City. Under Bramlet’s leadership, the Local 226 grew from 1,500 members to 22,000. He was also the president of the Nevada AFL-CIO. Bramlet’s power didn’t rest on the laurels of his ability to organize, but rather on his willingness to use violence to coerce cooperation to achieve union goals. In January 1977, Bramlet hired the father and son duo of Gramby and Thomas Hanley to place pipe bombs in front of two non-union restaurants: the Village Pub and the Starboard Tack restaurant. When the bombs failed to explode and were discovered by law enforcement, Bramlet refused to pay the men he hired to carry out the dirty deed. The Hanleys didn’t take too kindly to being stiffed, and a month later, they kidnapped Bramlet, forcing him into a van at gunpoint. Even though the jobs were botched, the Hanleys demanded payment, but Bramlet didn’t have the cash. So, after arranging a $10,000 loan to pay the Hanleys – which they instructed him to send to Binion’s Horseshoe Casino – they drove Bramlet out to a remote location in the desert near Potosi Mountain where they shot him six times, including once in each ear. It was a violent end for a man who lived a violent life. Hikers found Bramlet’s body three weeks after the execution. The money was never picked up at the casino. The Hanleys were arrested, went on trial, and got life in prison. Thomas Hanley died in 1979 while in federal custody, and Gramby Hanley entered the United States Federal Witness Protection Program while in prison, after giving testimony about the bombings and illegal union activities.

13. The Arsonist
In February 1981, just three months after the devastating MGM Grand Hotel fire that took the lives of 87 and injured 700, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Las Vegas Hilton (now known as the Westgate) in the elevator lobby. Philip Cline, a 23-year-old busboy at the hotel, was initially commended by authorities for trying to put out the fire, but inadvertently made a statement to investigators that made them think he was lying. Cline said he “filled a trash can with fire.” After being questioned further, Cline admitted to starting the deadly blaze that killed eight and injured nearly 200. At trial, Cline claimed he was high on PCP, but he was found guilty of eight counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.