Witnesses helped Las Vegas police find park stabbing suspect

First came the screams.

Then, one witness watched a woman wearing a backpack and a white shirt stroll out of a women’s restroom Thursday afternoon at West Flamingo Park, 6225 W. Flamingo Road.

“(The witness) said she walked casually west across the grass and started running when she got to Fairbanks Road,” an arrest report released Tuesday said.

Witnesses directed Las Vegas police to the nearby neighborhood, where they found Liliani Pinto, 33, in a vacant house often used by squatters. Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives found a backpack holding a large knife wrapped in a bloody white T-shirt and several ID cards under Pinto’s names, the report said. She also had blood on her shoes.

Paramedics responding to the park found Marilyn Allweiss, 27, suffering from multiple stab wounds in a bathroom stall. They removed her from the stall but were unable to revive her. The coroner’s office ruled her death a homicide, and police arrested Pinto on a murder charge.

Along with the bloodied evidence, witness accounts and descriptions helped police identify Pinto as the suspect in Allweiss’ killing. Homicide Lt. Ray Spencer said the two women might’ve been homeless.

One witness told Metro she rode her bicycle into the women’s restroom and recognized somebody she knew, whose name was redacted from the report. She said hello and walked toward the last stall in the bathroom.

She passed one stall with a woman standing inside and facing out, who “motioned to (the witness) to keep quiet,” the report said.

While inside a different stall, the witness “heard what sounded like a door being kicked and then heard (the person she recognized) screaming, ‘I don’t have your s—-,’” the report said. The witness then ran from the bathroom.

Pinto talked to detectives but gave varying accounts of where she was at the time and details of what she saw, the report said.

They didn’t buy her story.

“Pinto provided several different accounts of where she was going and where she was coming from during the interview,” the report said. “Due to the inconsistencies and varying stories, Detectives believe Pinto was not being truthful.”

Pinto first told police she was not at the park on Thursday but changed her story after police told her that witnesses had placed her there.

She eventually told police she was in the bathroom, along with several other people, including some men, although she couldn’t describe what they looked like. Pinto said she heard a commotion but left the bathroom without seeing anything; she was “adamant” she was not part of any fight, detectives wrote.

Pinto was denied bail at a court hearing Tuesday morning and remained in the Clark County Detention Center.

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