Arrest report details phone search of suspect in fatal shooting

As North Las Vegas detectives searched for a 48-year-old man’s killer, his oldest son may have made a curious search of his own, according to arrest documents.

Family and associates of Michael Ray Jamerson suggested to police that his son, Michael Ray Jamerson Jr., might be a suspect in the May 14 deadly shooting at his home in the 4900 block of Harold Street, and Detective Steven Wiese scheduled an interview with him, an arrest report states.

Jamerson Jr., 32, let police download data from his cellphone, and they discovered evidence that he had searched the internet for “how do you find out youre a suspect in a murder” on May 19, days before the first of two interviews he would give police, the report states.

That same day, the report continues, he visited webpages titled “how police interrogate murder suspects” and “former detective reveals how to tell when suspects are lying.”

Officers arrested Jamerson Jr. on charges of murder with a deadly weapon and burglary with a deadly weapon in his father’s death on Thursday.

Detectives learned that the father had a strained relationship with his oldest son and that Jamerson Jr. had lived at his father’s Harold Street home, near Lone Mountain Road and Bruce Street, from February 2018 through September 2018, the report states.

Jamerson kicked his son out of the house following a shooting there in July or August, and Jamerson Jr. hadn’t found stable housing since, the report states.

On May 14, Jamerson’s 12-year-old son heard a loud bang from inside the house, North Las Vegas police spokesman Eric Leavitt said. His father was found dead in the laundry room with a single gunshot wound.

Jamerson Jr. took up residence in his father’s house that same night and was living there until his arrest, Leavitt said.

The attack was carried out by someone who likely knew the layout of the house, Jamerson and his daily schedule, police determined. The killer broke a hole in the house, entered the only downstairs room without a motion detector and waited for Jamerson’s 12-year-old son to turn off the motion alarm and go upstairs to shower, a detective wrote in the report.

The killer then made his way to the garage and waited to ambush Jamerson in the laundry room, police said.

Family and associates of Jamerson suggested the older son as a possible suspect because he was expecting to inherit the house and benefit from multiple life insurance policies, Wiese wrote in the report.

Jamerson Jr. told police that his father kicked him out of the house for failing to pay rent and for last summer’s shooting, when he said he dropped a gun and it accidentally fired. A conversation between a woman and Jamerson in February conflicts with Jamerson Jr.’s recollection of the shooting.

A woman told North Las Vegas police that Jamerson told her he kicked his son out of the house after a fight they had that was “so bad ‘a gun got shot through the door,’ ” the report states.

Jamerson told the woman his son’s explanation, but she “understood the tone of his voice as well as his body language to mean (Jamerson) believed this was a lie and that Jamerson Jr. had indeed shot at him,” the report states.

Detectives examined house damage left by the 2018 bullet and doubted the son’s account because the bullet’s trajectory didn’t corroborate an accidental discharge.

Jamerson Jr.’s aunt brought police a handgun she had taken from Jamerson Jr., a gun police later determined was stolen. The casings’ head stamps matched that of the casing lying next to Jamerson’s body, the report said.

Detectives learned he had bought that gun at a pawn shop on April 8, and the Metropolitan Police Department’s firearms lab tested the gun, casing and bullet from Jamerson’s head. The gun matched the casing, and the bullet matched the gun, the report said.

Jamerson was denied bail and has an arraignment scheduled for Wednesday morning, court records show.

Attempts to reach Jamerson’s family weren’t immediately successful.

Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.