Man gets 32 years to life for slaying Las Vegas woman after burglary

Sheri Aoyagi was fatally shot in 2018 so the 17-year-old who robbed her home would “leave no witnesses behind,” District Judge Tierra Jones said Monday as she sentenced Aoyagi’s killer to 32 years to life in prison.

“One thing rings true here today — this was a completely avoidable crime,” Jones said during a sentencing hearing for Tyran Mollett, who fatally shot the 60-year-old woman on May 30, 2018, outside her home in the northwest Las Vegas Valley, near Torrey Pines Drive and Smoke Ranch Road.

In October, a jury convicted Mollett, now 21, of murder with a deadly weapon of a victim 60 or older, attempted murder with a deadly weapon of a victim 60 or older, conspiracy to commit burglary, burglary while in possession of a gun and discharging a firearm at or into an occupied vehicle, court records show.

Aoyagi and her husband, Stanley, returned home from eating lunch on May 30, 2018, to discover their home had been burglarized and that the burglars, later identified by police as Mollett and Kamari Collins, were still at the home.

Police said Mollett shot and killed Sheri Aoyagi in front of her husband, and fired another shot that narrowly missed Stanley Aoyagi.

Mollett and Collins, now 22, fled the scene after the shooting, and were later arrested in Palmdale, California, the Metropolitan Police Department has said. Collins pleaded guilty to a murder charge, but withdrew his plea last year. He will be tried before a jury in March, court records show.

During the sentencing hearing Monday, Jones said she would “never forget” a picture of a bullet hole in the headrest of the car Stanley Aoyagi was sitting in, showing how close he came to being hit.

Stanley Aoyagi’s voice shook as he told the judge he is still haunted by his wife’s final moments.

“I had to watch as the paramedics pulled a white sheet over my wife’s face and put her in a body bag and carry her off,” he said.

Sheri Aoyagi’s husband and sister described her as a kind, hard-working woman. She was close to retiring from her job as a flight attendant, and volunteered at a local animal shelter in her free time, said her sister, Karen Hasting.

Hasting asked the judge to give Mollett the maximum sentence.

“I believe that keeping him off the streets will save some other lives,” she said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.