Mom arrested on suspicion of murder in deaths of 2 babies
Las Vegas police on Friday arrested a mother on suspicion of murder in the deaths of her 1-year-old and 2-month-old babies at a central valley apartment complex.
About 12:15 p.m., the babies’ father called 911 after he came home to find both children dead in an apartment on the 1000 block of Sierra Vista Drive, near East Desert Inn Road and South Maryland Parkway, Metropolitan Police Department homicide Lt. Ray Spencer said during a briefing outside the scene Friday afternoon.
Officers attempted to save the 1-year-old child, but both babies were “well beyond medical attention,” he said.
“The father of the children came home and noticed that both children were in a corner in the living room area,” Spencer said. “(He) went up to both children and noticed that both children were cold and were obviously deceased.”
Police arrested the babies’ mother, a woman in her late 20s, he said. The woman will be booked into the Clark County Detention Center and will face two counts of murder, Spencer said.
It was unclear how the children died.
“The oldest child we do not know what exactly the cause of death is going to be,” he said. “On the younger child, we have a very good idea what the cause of injury is; however, I’m not going to get into that right now.”
It was too early in the investigation to determine if the mother suffered from a mental illness, although Spencer said he “would definitely not rule that out at this point.”
The father was “extremely upset” at the scene on Friday afternoon, which Spencer described as “horrific.”
“I think it impacts everybody that’s out here on the scene right now, be it the people in the courtyard that are dealing with it, officers, the detectives, myself,” Spencer said.
Further information was not immediately available. The Clark County coroner’s office will identify both children, as well as their cause and manners of death.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Glenn Puit contributed to this report.