Police release new details in 42-year-old cold case arrest

Las Vegas police released additional details this week from a 1980 investigation and the recent arrest of Paul Nuttall in connection with the death of Sandra DiFelice.

DiFelice’s roommate told detectives in 1980 that, after getting ready for work on the morning of the killing, she found Nuttall standing in the doorway of the bedroom where DiFelice was sleeping, according to Nuttall’s arrest report released Wednesday.

The roommate told Nuttall to leave that room because DiFelice was sleeping and didn’t work that day. She made him leave with her as she left for work.

The roommate said that Nuttall, who was 21 at the time, knocked on the door on that morning and asked if he could sleep in the house, according to police. She didn’t let him sleep at the house because DiFelice was asleep, and the roommate didn’t know him very well, the report said, but allowed him to stay while she got ready for work.

The initial crime scene investigation found a glass with Nuttall’s fingerprint on it. But that was explained when she told detectives that she poured Nuttall a drink in the glass where police found his fingerprint.

Police were initially called to the scene after DiFelice’s body was found around 9:30 p.m. that night, according to the arrest report. She was found in her bed beneath a comforter, with blood in the sink in her bathroom.

DiFelice’s body was first found by her boyfriend, who was there with another man to visit her.

DiFelice, 25, reportedly lived with her daughter and roommate, but DiFelice’s daughter was with her grandparents at the time of the killing, according to police.

Police said that the investigation was taken by cold case investigators after DiFelice’s daughter contacted Las Vegas police asking for details from DiFelice’s death in 2020.

The investigator asked for the sexual assault kit from the case to be tested for foreign DNA. Police said that the test found male DNA in fingernail scrapings in the kit.

In December 2021, the cold case investigator obtained a search warrant for Nuttall’s DNA through a buccal swab kit, which collects DNA from a swab of the inside of a person’s cheek. The investigator got the DNA from Nuttall, now 64, when he met him at his house later that month and Nuttall agreed to the swab.

In that interaction, Nuttall said that he didn’t know who DiFelice was and didn’t recognize a picture of her when shown, police say.

A report from the forensic laboratory on Oct. 14 found Nuttall’s DNA in DiFelice’s fingernail scrapings, police said.

Nuttall was arrested last week on charges of open murder, sexual assault and burglary while possessing a gun/deadly weapon.

He is set to appear in court for a competency hearing to determine if he is mentally fit to appear in court on Dec. 2.

Contact Mark Credico at mcredico@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCredicoII.