North Las Vegas police: 12-year-old girl ‘sole suspect’ in father’s stabbing death

North Las Vegas police have arrested a 12-year-old girl suspected of stabbing her father after a disagreement on Friday.

The North Las Vegas Police Department said it received a call around 9:30 p.m. on Friday from a family member of the 12-year-old girl who said that the girl’s father was possibly dead inside the apartment where the two lived.

The caller also told police that the girl said she had seen blood near her father’s body and believed someone may have broken in, according to the North Las Vegas Police Department.

Police later arrived at the apartment in the 3400 block of Mercury Street, near the intersection of Civic Center Drive and Cheyenne Avenue, and found a 55-year-old man dead.

Investigators learned during their investigation that police had responded to the apartment on multiple occasions earlier this month, including the father reporting a runaway juvenile on Dec. 7, and a domestic disturbance on Dec. 13 where the girl was arrested and accused of battering her father and leaving visible injuries.

Earlier on Friday, the father called police to report that the girl had run away from home again. She was found by patrol officers and returned home that day.

Disagreement ends in stabbing

Police said the girl made several different claims about what had occurred before her father’s death to police before ultimately admitting to stabbing her father after becoming upset with him.

The girl told police that the two had a “disagreement” earlier in the evening over a disciplinary action before he was found dead, police said.

She was booked into the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center on suspicion of murder with a deadly weapon, police said. She is the sole suspect in the case.

Police said no evidence was found that indicated any “significant” physical harm to the girl before the incident and that there also was no evidence of forced entry into the home.

Detectives are working to understand the circumstances that led to the fatal stabbing, police said. The identification of the 55-year-old man will be released by the Clark County coroner’s office at a later date.

Contact Taylor Lane at tlane@reviewjournal.com.