‘A beauty to the way he went’: Family recalls slain father of 6
At night, six pairs of eyes search the sky. They’re looking for their dad.
“He’s the moon,” Jack Prado, 5, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday, his eyes squinting at the sky. “Because it’s bright and shiny.”
Two days earlier, Jack and his five siblings lost their father, Jorge Antonio Prado. He was 42.
While working on his truck Saturday evening outside their home on the 1200 block of Lamb Boulevard, someone walked up and opened fire at close range.
His family finds some comfort knowing he died doing what he loved.
“There’s almost a beauty to the way he went,” Frances Prado, his sister-in-law, said Monday. “Fixing cars was his passion, his life.”
Belia Prado told the Review-Journal some of her earliest memories of her youngest child were watching him take apart toy cars and rebuild them. Jorge Prado carried his curiosity for cars into adulthood, providing for his family using his self-taught skills.
On Monday afternoon in the family’s quiet, mobile-home neighborhood, Jorge Prado’s oldest son, 16-year-old Jorge Jr., had his head buried under the hood of a truck as he replaced its battery.
“He got that from his dad,” Frances Prado said.
Love at first sight
At age 23, Aurora Aguirre worked as a waitress at Mexitaco at Carey Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard North. More than 20 years later, the restaurant has been replaced, but the building is the same. It’s there where she met her husband of nearly 18 years. 
“For a week he would come in and order soup,” she recalled. “He gave me his phone number and I told him I’d call, but I wasn’t actually planning to.”
Jorge Prado kept returning to order soup from Aguirre, she said, and did so until she called him.
A month later, the two were married.
“Love at first sight,” Aguirre said, wiping a tear from her eye. “He was so charismatic.”
‘A good life’
Jorge Prado grew up in the small city of Ameca, Mexico, and immigrated to America when he was 15. Belia Prado said her son learned the value of hard work at a young age.
He took odd jobs and worked long hours to provide for his family, and the work was almost always physically demanding, his family said.
“Tonio always tried to be the best father and husband he could be,” Aguirre said.
Prado’s six children built a makeshift memorial for their dad next to the Dodge Ram pickup he’d been working on before he was killed. His tools, toy cars and letters addressed to him were neatly placed on a small wooden table.
Stacey, 12, wrote a letter to her dad, Jorge Antonio Prado. He was gunned down Saturday night outside their home while working on this truck.
Stacey and her siblings told me every night they see their dad when they look up in the sky. “He’s the moon!” #RJnow pic.twitter.com/vr7xHhQtLB
— Rio Lacanlale (@riolacanlale) January 30, 2018
“Me and dad talked a lot. He always reminded me to stay focused,” Johnathan Prado, 14, said. “He wanted a good life for us so we wouldn’t have to use our hands at work like he did.”
As the sun dipped below the mountains Monday afternoon, Aguirre, the kids and a handful of neighbors joined hands to pray next to the memorial.
“We can’t think of a single person who would want to hurt (him),” Frances Prado, the sister-in-law, said.
Detectives had no leads as of Monday, but Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Dan McGrath has said the killing appeared to be a targeted act.
Jorge Prado leaves behind his wife, their six children, his parents and seven siblings.
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.
