Arrest report: Las Vegas woman feared for her safety days before shooting

Five days before she was fatally shot in east Las Vegas in November, Patricia Salas feared for her safety, according to Las Vegas police arrest reports.

The 48-year-old Las Vegas woman texted a photo of a red Honda to her friend and said, “If something were to happen to her, the Honda would have something to do with it,” according to Metropolitan Police Department arrest reports for three suspects.

Salas worked as an “atmosphere girl,” serving drinks and befriending male customers, at Las Adelitas nightclub, 3402 E. Lake Mead Blvd., and had contacted Las Vegas police to “report criminal activity in several similar nightclubs which she worked at,” the reports said.

After leaving work early Nov. 25, Salas was shot while she was driving east on Lake Mead Boulevard, near Lamb Boulevard, police have said.

Three charged

Last month, Alvie Herrell, 23, and Christian Walker, 19, were arrested and charged with murder in connection with Salas’ death. According to their arrest reports, which were released to the Review-Journal on Friday and identify the two as brothers, Walker is accused of shooting Salas.

A third defendant, 33-year-old Sebastian Nava, also was identified in the arrest reports as a suspect. Court records show the three men have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and murder with a deadly weapon.

According to the arrest report, Nava was inside Las Adelitas nightclub when Salas reported for work late Nov. 24, and he left the bar around 3:30 a.m. About 4:55 a.m., Salas left work and walked toward her car in the parking lot.

As she left the building, a red Honda Accord and a maroon Cadillac Escalade pulled into the parking lot. The Honda, which had an Uber sticker in the front window, “backed in blocking the southeast exit” of the parking lot while the Escalade pulled into a spot near Salas’ car, the report said.

A man with a red bandanna covering his face got out of the back of the Honda and began walking to where Salas was parked.

“Salas, unbeknownst to the subject approaching,” then pulled out of her parking spot and drove past the Cadillac onto Lake Mead Boulevard, the report said.

The man wearing the bandanna then ran back to the Honda and got into the front passenger seat. Both cars left the parking lot and followed Salas down eastbound Lake Mead.

A surveillance video from a gas station showed the Cadillac pulling into an apartment complex near the road’s intersection with Lamb Boulevard about 4:55 a.m. Salas continued driving east through the intersection, as the Honda “accelerated speed and drove next to Salas’ vehicle,” the report said.

Thirteen shell casings

The report did not go into further details about the actual shooting but stated detectives found 13 9 mm expended shell casings on Lake Mead, just east of Lamb Boulevard. Police have said Salas continued driving about a quarter-mile after she was shot before she crashed into a wall.

Police received a 911 call about 5 a.m. notifying them of the crash, just five minutes after Salas left work. The Clark County coroner’s office has said she died of multiple gunshot wounds, and her death was ruled a homicide.

Detectives determined Salas had recently been fired and then reinstated at the nightclub. Salas sent the photo of a red Honda Accord parked next to a maroon Cadillac Escalade in the nightclub’s parking lot to her friend on Nov. 20, the report said.

On Jan. 7, Nava turned himself in at the Clark County Detention Center “for unrelated felony charges,” the report said. A source identified Nava as someone who knew two men who matched Herrell’s and Walkers’ descriptions.

“This source confirmed Nava drove a maroon Cadillac Escalade,” the report said.

Another unidentified source told police that while outside the club prior to the shooting, “the source believed Herrell received a phone call, then placed a subsequent call to Walker.”

The source also told police that Herrell was in the Escalade with Nava during the shooting, and that Walker was the “actual shooter from the passenger side of the Honda Accord,” the report said.

During an interview with police, Walker identified the Escalade and the Honda as “being Nava’s vehicles,” but admitted to driving the Honda in the past, the report said.

“When Walker was shown surveillance photos of the vehicles at the time of the murder, he became irate and refused to answer questions,” the report said.

Herrell declined to talk to investigators after his arrest.

Las Vegas Justice Court records show that on Jan. 7, Nava was arrested in two separate felony cases — one related to charges of drug possession, a weapons charge and traffic-related misdemeanors, while the other was related to charges of robbery with a deadly weapon, coercion, discharging a gun where others might be endangered, domestic battery and a weapons charge. He’s also identified in court records as Sebastian Nava-Guerra.

Nava previously pleaded guilty to other felonies including burglary and robbery. In March 2019 he was indicted in District Court on a charge of accessory to murder, and a trial in that case is scheduled for June 29.

Herrell in December 2013 pleaded guilty to attempted battery with substantial bodily harm, while Walker has an active case related to felony drug possession charges from October 2019, court records show.

A preliminary hearing for Herrell, Nava and Walker is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday, court records show.

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