Grand jury indicts Las Vegas man in slaying of 24-year-old model
A Las Vegas man was indicted Monday in the slaying of a 24-year-old model whose body authorities said was found encased in concrete.
Christopher Prestipino, 45, faces murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges in the death of Esmeralda Gonzalez. The same charges previously were filed against him in a criminal complaint.
Prestipino’s roommate, Casandra Garrett, 39, and his girlfriend, Lisa Mort, 31, also are charged in the slaying.
Garrett faces murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges, while Mort faces one count of harboring, concealing or aiding a felon.
As of Monday afternoon, Garrett remained jailed in Wisconsin, where she was arrested earlier this month. She is awaiting extradition to face a judge in Nevada.
Court documents allege that Prestipino and Garrett killed Gonzalez “with a poisonous substance and/or by strangulation.”
The indictment against Prestipino, returned by a grand jury, eliminates the need for a preliminary hearing and takes his case directly to the trial court level. Prosecutors have not indicted Garrett or Mort in connection with the killing.
Gonzalez, who worked in the adult entertainment industry and had more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, lived about one-tenth of a mile from Prestipino.
Her Facebook profile indicated that she was from Michoacan, Mexico, and had studied at UNLV.
Prosecutors have written in court papers that Prestipino took extensive measures to hide Gonzalez’s body after he strangled her and injected her with pool cleaner.
Gonzalez was last seen alive in the pre-dawn hours of May 31, when she was captured on residential surveillance video trying to open the door to a home on the 9000 block of West Torino Avenue, less than two-tenths of a mile from Prestipino’s home.
In court papers, Prestipino’s lawyer, Bill Terry, argued that Prestipino was not a flight risk, saying that he had returned to Las Vegas from a short vacation and was arrested after leaving the airport earlier this month.
But Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly said Prestipino may have had plans to travel as far as China before his arrest. He returned from Belize after telling Mort that “if everything’s cool,” he would come get her, according to court documents.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.