Woman on parole accused in ‘random’ shooting at Las Vegas apartment complex

A man was shot and killed by an assailant Tuesday in an apparently random attack at an apartment complex in the southwest valley while the victim was working with his brother in a cleaning business.

At about 4 p.m., Las Vegas police were called to the Venicia Apartments in the 3600 block of South Fort Apache Road near West Twain Avenue where they found the victim next to a white van near the entrance to the complex, Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Jason Johansson said.

Police attempted to save the wounded man but he died later at University Medical Center, Johansson said.

The Clark County coroner’s office Wednesday identified the man as 41-year-old Las Vegas resident Raul Cardoza.

Witnesses interviewed by police described the shooter as a man with facial tattoos and carrying numerous bags who fled from the complex’s front entrance, but patrol officers were able to capture the suspect, who ended up being a woman, in a nearby neighborhood, he said.

The suspect had been inside the complex but did not live there and had been checking doors to cars, “likely to burglarize those cars,” and some residents notified the leasing manager who directed maintenance workers to get her off the property, Johansson said.

“While that is going on, our victim and his brother are sitting inside their white van, which is a carpet cleaning company van, and they are just doing their job doing an estimate to clean someone’s carpet,” he said.

“Our suspect then quickly approaches the white van, removes a handgun and shoots our victim, who’s the driver of the white van while he’s sitting in the van,” he said.

“Right now, we have no indication at all that our victim had any indication at all that our victim had any interaction with our suspect prior to that occurring,” he said.

The shooting appears to have been “completely random” and the victim “a completely innocent, hardworking human being who’s here at work, is shot and killed while doing their job,” he said.

Police call logs and court records identified the shooter as 27-year-old Kayla Alery.

Alery faces charges of open murder, assault with a deadly weapon, being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon and discharging a gun into an occupied structure or vehicle.

Last year, Alery was sentenced to 14 months to three years in prison after pleading guilty to counts of third-degree and fourth-degree arson.

According to the Nevada Department of Corrections, Alery was paroled in December.

In 2018, she was placed on probation after pleading to a count of attempted burglary.

At the apartment complex, a man said he was a brother of the victim and had been called to the scene by his other brother after the shooting.

“I feel terrible,” the man said. “We are three brothers here, now they are two, and now how do I say to my mom. We came from El Salvador. My mom expected to visit maybe in the next couple months.”

The name of the cleaning business, written on the side of the white van, was Immaculate Restoration and Carpet Care, located at 3255 Pepper Lane in southeast Las Vegas.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on X.