Death penalty trial over 2018 Circus Circus killings starts jury deliberations

A Las Vegas jury has begun deliberations to determine if a 37-year-old man is guilty of killing two Vietnamese tour leaders in their hotel room at the Circus Circus more than six years ago.

Julius Trotter is facing the death penalty in his trial on two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, burglary with a deadly weapon and two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors have alleged that Trotter was attempting to break into hotel rooms at the Circus Circus on June 1, 2018, when he came across Sang Nghia and Khuong Nguyen’s room with a broken lock.

Trotter is accused of stabbing Nghia and Nguyen multiple times, stealing money, a watch and a backpack from the tourists and leaving their bodies to be found hours later.

“And then what did he do? He spent the day gambling,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Fleck told the jury in closing arguments on Monday. “Without a care in the world, this man’s day continued, as Sang and Khuong lay dead in their hotel room.”

The jury began deliberations on Monday afternoon, after attorneys spent all day presenting closing arguments. The deliberations are expected to continue on Tuesday.

Surveillance footage

Prosecutors have said Trotter was seen on surveillance footage in a Circus Circus elevator in the early hours when Nghia and Nguyen were killed. He was captured on video returning to his room at the Circus Circus Manor about 45 minutes later, with his shirt turned inside out, before he quickly checked out of the hotel with his ex-girlfriend, Itaska Dean.

He was then seen on surveillance footage stopping by an ATM to deposit cash before checking in at the Palms casino and gambling, prosecutors said. Police arrested Trotter days later in Chino, California, after he and Dean led officers on a car chase.

Police found items belonging to the victims in Trotter’s car and the house he was staying in with Dean. Police also found traces of Nghia and Nguyen’s blood on a pair of shoes that also contained Trotter’s DNA, prosecutors argued.

Lisa Rasmussen, one of Trotter’s defense attorneys, argued that there was not enough forensic evidence tying Trotter to the hotel room where Nghia and Nguyen were killed.

“They have not proved their case,” Rasmussen said. “They have not proved that our client, Julius Trotter, is guilty of any of the crimes that he is charged with.”

Trotter testified to the jury last week that he was walking to the hotel tower that morning to have sex with a sex worker and that he received the victims’ stolen items from a friend of his, who had given him stolen goods to resell in the past.

Shoe sizes an issue

He said his friend also gave him the size 11½ shoes with the victim’s blood on them, which were identical to a pair of size 13 shoes Trotter said he was wearing in the surveillance footage the night Nghia and Nguyen were killed.

“Our client wears a 13, he was arrested in a size 13, you have testimony from his girlfriend that she always bought him a size 13,” Rasmussen said. “Nobody wears a shoe a size and a half too small.”

Prosecutors identified traces of bloody footprints in the victims’ hotel room, but Rasmussen argued that you could not tell the size of the shoe from the print. Trotter’s DNA and fingerprints were also not found in the hotel room, Rasmussen said.

Fleck told the jury that the trial has been “basically a two-week game of whack-a-mole,” because of the defense’s theories.

During opening statements, defense attorney Ozzie Fumo argued that Nghia and Nguyen could have been killed in a targeted hit, and questioned why the two were sharing a hotel room together. An expert witness called by the defense testified last week that the crime could have been sexual in nature, because of the position of some stab wounds, and implied that the victims may have been having an affair.

Nghia owned a tour company with her husband in Vietnam, and Nguyen was one of her employees. Prosecutors said that the two came along on the trip with a third tour guide at the last minute, and that they were initially not supposed to share a hotel room together.

Fleck also argued that Nguyen was gay, and that Nghia was sending her husband selfies of herself with Nguyen in the background.

While the defense argued that the victims’ multiple stab wounds suggested a crime of passion instead of a burglary, prosecutors said it wouldn’t make sense for a targeted hit to result in so many stab wounds.

“After we push all of this aside, what do we have?” Fleck told the jury. “We have two completely innocent people who were savagely murdered by the defendant in what they assumed was the safety and security of their own hotel room. They did nothing to contribute to their own demise. They did not deserve this.”

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.