Top 10 Las Vegas Crimes

Have you even been to Las Vegas?  It can be an overwhelming experience, especially on your first visit.  It is a city with an encapsulating environment of lavish sin, which it provides to everyone from your typical bachelor or bachelorette parties, to the worlds most wealthy individuals. Today on The Secret Sits I am going to cover my Top 10 Las Vegas true crime cases.

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#LasVegas #Nevada #CircusCircus #Casino #Robbery #JessicaWilliams #DUI #TedBinion #BennyBinion #Kidnapping #BikerBandit #Bellagio #GeorgeJayVandermark #LasVegasHilton #Fire #OJSimpson #Memorabilia #SteveWynn #KevynWynn #TupacShakur #BruceSeldon #MikeTyson #TrayLane #MGMGrand 

Transcript

Have you even been to Las Vegas?  It can be an overwhelming experience, especially on your first visit.  It is a city with an encapsulating environment of lavish sin, which it provides to everyone from your typical bachelor or bachelorette parties, to the worlds most wealthy individuals. Today on The Secret Sits I am going to cover my Top 10 Las Vegas true crime cases.

10 – Armored Truck Robbery of the Circus Circus casino

In 1993, Heather Tallchief drove away from the Circus Circus Casino in an armored truck with over $2.95 million inside. Tallchief and her accomplice, Roberto Solis, fled to Amsterdam with the millions and were not heard from for over a decade. In 2005, Tallchief turned herself in to Las Vegas authorities.  Because she wanted a normal life for her now 10-year-old son.  In 2006, a federal judge sentenced Tallchief to five years and three months in prison for her role in the heist. Roberto Solis has never been found and none of the stolen money has ever been recovered.

9 -The Jessica Williams DUI Case

It is not often that a DUI makes a list of notable crimes, but this story is notable in its controversy over the role of marijuana in DUI cases. On March 19, 2000, a 21-year-old exotic dancer named Jessica Williams had just finished a hiking trip outside of Las Vegas. On the drive back to the city, Williams’ minivan careened off the interstate and tore through a group of teenagers who were cleaning up the side of the road as punishment for petty juvenile offenses. When the van rolled to a stop, six teenagers were dead. Williams told police officers at the scene that she had fallen asleep at the wheel and admitted that she had taken ecstasy 12 hours earlier, in addition to smoking a few hits of marijuana about two hours prior to the incident. Williams appeared alert to the police and paramedics, but her blood tests exceeded the legal limit for marijuana metabolites and she was charged with vehicular manslaughter for driving while intoxicated. Marijuana metabolites can remain in a person’s blood for up to 30 days after using marijuana, even though the person is no longer feeling the effects of the THC in the drug. At her trial, Williams argued that she had not slept for 24 hours before the accident and claimed that she fell asleep at the wheel due to fatigue rather than the marijuana. The jury agreed that Williams was not impaired, but still found her guilty of having more than the legal limit of marijuana metabolite in her blood at the time of the accident and she was sentenced to 48 years in prison. Meanwhile, the law Williams was convicted under remains unchanged, which means a person can still be convicted of a DUI in Nevada even though they are not intoxicated while driving.

8 – The Ted Binion Kidnapping Plot

Benny Binion got his start in Texas in the 1930s running a series of gambling saloons, and during that time, he admitted to gunning down a business competitor and was suspected in several other murders. Binion came to Las Vegas in the 1940s, where he established the Horseshoe Casino, home of the World Series of Poker. Fast forward to late 1967, where Las Vegas cab driver Marvin Shumate has hatched a plan to get rich quick by ransoming the child of a casino owner, and his target was Benny’s 24-year-old son, Ted Binion. The plan was to use information gathered from Shumate’s son, who was friends with Ted Binion, to abduct the young Binion and hold him for ransom. Shumate recruited another cab driver into his plans, but he got cold feet when Shumate told him that they would have to kill Ted in order to get away with the crime. Instead of going to the police about the plot he went directly to old man Binion. Shumate’s body was found on a mountain overlooking Las Vegas on a morning in December 1967. He had suffered a shotgun blast to his chest and a single revolver bullet to his head. No one was ever charged in Shumate’s murder, but the police and FBI felt the evidence showed that Benny Binion had ordered the hit. As for Ted Binion, he would ultimately be found dead under mysterious circumstances in 1998. His best friend and live-in girlfriend were charged with his murder in a trial that captured national attention but both were acquitted upon appeal.

7 - The Biker Bandit

The casinos lining the Las Vegas strip are some of the most heavily surveilled places in the world. As a result, very few are robbed, and when they are, the perpetrators are usually quickly apprehended. This story is one of the boldest casino heists in the city’s history, and this thief actually almost got away with it. On December 14, 2010, a man parked his motorcycle in front of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino and walked inside. While still wearing his motorcycle helmet, the man walked up to a craps table and pulled a gun. The dealer turned over his chips and the robber ran back through the casino, speeding off on his bike into the heavy traffic of the strip. The thief made off with $1.5 million in chips, but that would prove to be his downfall. The chips would either have to be turned in at the casino or sold to a third party, because all Las Vegas Chips are unique to that particular casino.  The first clue emerged a few weeks after the robbery when a Salvation Army bell-ringer tried to cash in a $25,000 chip given to him by a stranger. Shortly thereafter, a person calling himself the Biker Bandit appeared online offering to sell more of the $25,000 chips. Undercover Las Vegas police officers made contact with the Biker Bandit and arranged a meeting at the Bellagio to buy the chips. Police nabbed 29-year-old Anthony Carleo and charged him with the robbery. The full brazenness of the Biker Bandit’s actions only became apparent after his arrest. It turned out that Carleo had been staying at the Bellagio as a guest when he committed the robbery, and he even returned to the casino afterwards to drink and gamble. He had also carried out another robbery of a different casino three weeks before the Bellagio heist, making off with $18,000. In one final twist, Carleo was also the son of a local judge. Carleo was convicted and received a sentence of 3–11 years for the Biker Bandit crimes.

6 – The Las Vegas Alberton’s Massacre

The United States has been plagued by a string of mass shootings in recent years and Las Vegas has not been spared from this epidemic. Early on the morning of June 3, 1999 Zane Floyd, a 23-year-old ex-Marine, walked the two blocks to a nearby Albertson’s supermarket carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. Floyd shot an employee near a row of shopping carts at the entrance before roaming the store and murdering three more employees.

Surveillance footage later emerged showing Floyd chasing his last victim, Zachary Emenegger, before shooting him in the back and then once more as he lies on the ground. Emenegger was severely wounded but alive and he decided his best option was to play dead. Floyd wandered the store before returning to the motionless Emenegger, pausing a moment before saying “Yeah, you’re dead.” Having shot everyone, he could find in the store, Floyd tried to flee on foot, but the police had the building surrounded. A standoff ensued as Floyd stood outside the store with a gun to his head, threatening to kill himself. The police eventually talked him into surrendering and Floyd was eventually convicted of four counts of murder as well as the rape of an exotic dancer he committed earlier that morning. He currently sits on Nevada’s death row awaiting execution. This terrible incident is used by law enforcement when educating the public on how to respond to a mass shooting incident. Experts recommend hiding, fighting, or running from an attacker, but if those aren’t options, the best tactic may be playing dead to survive, like Emenegger did.

5 - George Jay Vandermark’s Mysterious Disappearance

George Jay Vandermark was a Slot Machine Supervisor at the Stardust resort and Casino in Las Vegas. In 1976, the Nevada Gaming Control Board raided the casino. In their investigation, they found that Vandermark had been part of a Mafia scheme to skim money from the casino’s slot machines. During his career at the casino, Vandermark had stolen over $7 million. Unfortunately, the NGCB missed Vandermark, as he had managed to escape. In addition to stealing money from the casino, Vandermark had also been stealing money from the mafia. In fact, he had kept around $3 million for himself. Now Vandermark, had two groups chasing him.

Initially, everyone thought Vandermark had successfully gotten away. However, the Nevada Gaming Control Board knew that Vandermark’s life was in danger and tried to reach out to him through his son in order to help him. All Vandermark had to do was provide evidence against the mafia. After some negotiation, Vandermark’s son reported back that his father would help. However, his father never showed up at the agreed time. His mysterious disappearance remains one of the biggest unsolved crimes in Las Vegas history. While it can never be proven, investigators suspect that the mafia probably finally found George Jay Vandermark and killed him. His body is probably buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the Nevada desert.

4 - Hilton Arson

The Las Vegas Hilton is famous for headlining acts like Elvis and Liberace, but the hotel is also the scene of one of the city’s most horrific crimes.  Philip Cline had been at his new job as a busboy at the Hilton for a grand total of two days when a fire broke out in an elevator lobby near him on the eighth floor. He alerted several guests and claimed he used a nearby wastebasket to throw water on the flames. The fire consumed much of the building, killing eight people and injuring 200 more. Cline was initially praised for his actions, but investigators became suspicious when he made a Freudian slip and told the police he had “grabbed a trash can and filled it with fire.” Homicide detectives questioned Cline further about his story and he finally broke down. He admitted starting the fire, but claimed he had done it accidentally when the joint he was smoking set some nearby curtains on fire. Investigators doubted that version of events when they were unable to replicate a fire starting in that same manner.  Cline was convicted of eight counts of murder and one count of arson and sentenced to life in prison. He later granted a jailhouse interview where he came clean about what really happened the day of the fire. A friend had given him a joint laced with PCP before work, warning him not to smoke the whole thing at once. Cline ignored this advice and—in a PCP-induced stupor—he used his cigarette lighter to set fire to some curtains. He is expected to serve out the rest of his days behind bars.

3 - OJ Simpson Sports Memorabilia Heist

We all know OJ Simpson for his professional football career, his roles as a comic actor and for being the prime suspect in a horrific double murder. Simpson was acquitted of murder but he later ran into financial difficulties when the families of the murder victims won a multimillion-dollar civil judgment against him. It was these financial troubles that would ultimately send him to prison.  In 2007, most of Simpson’s income was still being seized to pay off his civil judgments when he received a phone call from auction house owner Thomas Riccio informing him that two sports memorabilia dealers would be selling several items that used to belong to Simpson in Las Vegas. Riccio arranged a meeting between Simpson and the memorabilia dealers in a room at a hotel about a mile from the strip, but unbeknownst to anyone else in the room, Riccio had hidden a small tape recorder on a dresser. Simpson arrived at the hotel room with five associates, some of whom began brandishing guns. Simpson ordered his friends to prevent anyone from leaving the room while he gathered several hundred pieces of memorabilia from the dealers. The heist was over in six minutes, and Simpson and his friends were recorded laughing about their exploits later over dinner—but Simpson would not be laughing for long. When the police questioned Simpson, he claimed that no one in his entourage had a gun during the incident and he was just trying to recover items that had been stolen from his house years before. Simpson’s story fell apart, though, when the audio recording of the robbery came out and several of Simpson’s accomplices agreed to become witnesses for the prosecution in exchange for lighter sentences. Simpson refused a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for 2–5 years and took his case to trial. After several weeks of testimony, Simpson was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison for kidnapping and armed robbery.

2 – The Kidnapping of Steve Wynn’s Daughter

The casino moguls that run the Las Vegas strip are worth billions of dollars. That net worth can make them, and their families, attractive targets for criminals intent on making a quick fortune. Steve Wynn, the CEO of the company that owns Treasure Island and the Bellagio, had just returned home from work on July 26, 1993 when he took a call from a man who claimed to have kidnapped his daughter. It turned out that Wynn’s 26-year-old daughter, Kevyn, had been abducted by two armed men from her posh home in an exclusive Las Vegas neighborhood. The kidnappers demanded $2.5 million in ransom, but they settled for $1.45 million when Wynn told them that was all the cash he had on hand that night. Wynn took the money from the casino vault and loaded it in a white plastic bag, which he left in a parked car a few miles from the strip. Once the kidnappers picked up the ransom, they called Wynn and told him he could find his daughter at McCarran International Airport. Wynn found his daughter tied up, but safe, in a car at the airport parking lot.  The police received their break just one day after the kidnapping, when a sporting club manager named Ray Cuddy walked into a car dealership in Newport Beach, California and tried to pay for a new Ferrari with $200,000 in cash. When Cuddy returned to the dealership a few days later to finalize the purchase, the FBI was waiting for him. Shortly after Cuddy’s arrest, his accomplice, Jacob Sherwood, was also arrested. Both men were convicted of a litany of charges related to the kidnapping and were sentenced to decades in federal prison.

1 – The Murder of Tupac Shakur

On September 7th 1996, Tupac Shakur attended the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match with Marion "Suge" Knight, the head of Death Row Records, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. After leaving the match, one of Knight's associates, Travon "Tray" Lane, a member of the M.O.B. Pirus gang based in Compton, California, spotted Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, from the rival Southside Crips gang, in the MGM Grand lobby.

Earlier that year, in May 1996, Anderson and a group of Southside Crips attempted to rob Lane in a Foot Locker store. Lane told Shakur, who in turn attacked Anderson in the lobby. Shakur asked Anderson if he was from the "South" (Southside Crips) and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Shakur and Knight's entourage assisted in assaulting Anderson. The fight, which was captured on the MGM Grand's video surveillance, was broken up by hotel security.

After the brawl, Shakur went with Knight to Club 662 (since closed), which was owned by Knight. Shakur disclosed to girlfriend Kidada Jones his involvement in the Anderson fight, previously having promised to return to her after entering the MGM Grand and having her stay in a vehicle. Shakur left with Knight after changing clothes.

At 11:00–11:05 p.m., Shakur and Knight were halted on Las Vegas Boulevard by officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Bike Patrol for playing the car stereo too loudly and not having license plates. The plates were found in the trunk of Knight's car. The party was released a few minutes later without being cited. At 11:10 p.m., while they were stopped at a red light at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in front of the Maxim Hotel, a vehicle occupied by two women pulled up on their left side. Shakur, who was talking through the window of his brand new 1996 BMW 750iL sedan, exchanged words with the two women, and invited them to go to Club 662.

At 11:15 p.m., a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac pulled up to Knight's right side. The shooter, seated at the back of the Cadillac, rolled down the window and rapidly fired gunshots from a .40 S&W Glock 22 at Shakur's BMW. Shakur was hit four times – twice in the chest, once in the arm, once in the thigh. One of the bullets went into Shakur's right lung. Knight was hit in the head by fragmentation.

Despite Knight's injuries, and his vehicle having a flat tire, he was able to drive Shakur and himself a mile from the site, to Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue. They were again pulled over by the Bike Patrol, who alerted paramedics through radio. After arriving on the scene, police and paramedics took Knight and Shakur to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada. They were pulled over just steps away from the MGM Grand.

At the hospital, Shakur was heavily sedated, was placed on life support machines, and was ultimately put under a medically-induced coma after repeatedly trying to get out of bed. He was visited by Jones and regained consciousness when she played Don McLean's "Vincent" on the CD player next to his bed. According to Jones, Shakur moaned and his eyes were filled with "mucus and swollen." Jones told Shakur that she loved him.

Knight was released from the hospital the day following the shooting on September 8, but did not speak until September 11. He told officers he "heard something, but saw nothing" the night of the shooting. A spokesman for the officers said Knight's statement did nothing to help the investigation. Officers at the time of Shakur's hospitalization reported having no leads. Sergeant Kevin Manning said during the week that officers did not receive "a whole lot of cooperation" from Shakur's entourage.

While in the critical care unit on the afternoon of Friday, September 13, 1996, Shakur died of respiratory failure that led to cardiac arrest after the removal of his right lung. Doctors attempted to revive him, but could not stop the hemorrhaging. His mother, Afeni, made the decision to cease medical treatment. He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm. To this day, this killing remains one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in Las Vegas history.

Before I go today, I wanted to say that we noticeably did not include the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting on this list.  We wanted to avoid that incident as it is still so fresh for many people and we also just passed the 5th anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, where the makers of this podcast lost several friends.  But life goes on, so go to Vegas and have a great time, just watch out for yourself and those you love and don’t let yourself become a victim of someone else’s crimes.  I’m John Dodson and this has been The Secret Sits.  Audio Engineering by Gabriel Dodson.  Original artwork provided by Tony Ley.