Woman, 85, dies after intruder attack at Henderson home
A 85-year-old woman who was attacked by a man who broke into her Henderson home died on Thursday, police said.
About 5:50 a.m. April 21 the woman, identified by police as Mary Lacella, called police to report a man broke into her apartment at the Galleria Palms Apartments, 625 Whitney Ranch Road, attacked her and then ran away, according to an arrest report released by the Henderson Police Department on Thursday. Lacella was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in critical condition after officers found her suffering from multiple facial fractures and a small brain bleed, the report said.
The Clark County coroner’s office had not identified the woman or released her cause and manner of death as of Thursday afternoon.
Officers had been called to the complex earlier that day, around 5:18 a.m., in response to reports of a man looking through parked cars with a flashlight, the report said. When they arrived, they couldn’t find the man.
Police identified the suspect, 27-year-old Demetrius Walker, and said he threatened customers and the clerk at a nearby 7-Eleven, 16800 W. Sunset Road, around 5:34 a.m. The clerk told police that he was carrying a crowbar and wearing an orange bandana, a red sweatshirt, and blue jeans and black sneakers, and she knew him as “Pharaoh.”
Police said Lacella gave the same description, adding that Walker had knocked on her door and asked for a glass of water. When she wouldn’t open the door, he allegedly forced entry, breaking the doorjamb, and punched her multiple times.
Walker told Lacella to give him all her money and jewelry, but she said he left without taking anything and left behind a silver cup with paperwork in it, according to the report. Police said they found a crowbar and an orange bandana on the ground near Lacella’s apartment building.
Police determined that the silver cup had been stolen from another resident’s car that morning. According to the report, a vacant apartment in the complex had also been broken into.
The 7-Eleven clerk told police that Walker had used the clerk’s phone to log into his Facebook account to contact his girlfriend. Police used the Facebook page to identify him. Later that day, officers responded to an unrelated disturbance call involving Walker and arrested him.
Walker has been arrested numerous times and booked under multiple variations of the spelling of his first and last names, according to police.
Walker is charged with felony counts of home invasion, attempted robbery, battery with intent to commit mayhem, robbery or grand larceny against an older person, burglary of a business, and two counts of obtaining or possessing a credit or debit card without the cardholder’s permission, court records show. Police said Thursday that his charges will be amended to include one count of murder.
He remained in the Clark County Detention Center on Thursday on $10,000 bail, court records show. He is scheduled to appear in court on May 12.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Alexis Ford contributed to this report.
