Detective now knows how families of homicide victims feel
Bobby Kinch always figured he would be the victim of valley crime.
The Metropolitan Police Department gang detective thought he would end up on the wrong end of some retribution scheme.
Then the phone call came: His 75-year-old mother, Josephine Mascola, was robbed and assaulted in the wee hours of June 9.
She was dead.
"The funny thing is that everyone pretty much walks around in denial. For your parents to die before you is expected, but you think they will suffer some illness and there will be time to be with them in the hospital," he said.
Instead, Kinch’s mother had been dead 14 hours before he found out, he said.
For 14 years Kinch has tried to defend people who couldn’t defend themselves. And though he has learned to sympathize with victims of crime and their families, Kinch said he never fully understood what it was like to walk in their shoes.
The facts of the case are few. North Las Vegas police know that Mascola, using a motorized wheelchair, left her home at an assisted living complex near Lake Mead Boulevard and Simmons Avenue sometime before 2:30 a.m.
Police don’t know where she was going: perhaps to a nearby 7-Eleven or to Texas Station. Maybe she just wanted some fresh air.
It was typical for her to do what she wanted, when she wanted, Kinch said. "She was very independent."
At some point Mascola was attacked. Investigators don’t know the number or identity of her attackers.
She made it to the 7-Eleven, where she told the attendant that she had been robbed and battered, said Tim Bedwell, spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police Department.
Emergency service workers soon arrived. Mascola, who had minor visible injuries, was taken to University Medical Center. She died soon after.
The Clark County Coroner’s office ruled Mascola died of hypertensive and arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Her death was ruled a homicide by the coroner’s office.
Police believe Mascola’s death was a direct result of the robbery. Bedwell said that if a suspect in the robbery is caught, a first-degree murder charge probably will be added.
The tragedy of Mascola’s life went beyond its ending, her son said. When she was a child, her father killed her mother and fled the country, orphaning Mascola and her six siblings.
As the second-oldest child, Mascola assumed the role of matriarch and spent years searching for her siblings and reuniting the family. In recent years she watched four sisters die of cancer, Kinch said.
Mascola’s first son, who was 17 years older than Kinch, was in and out of jail before he took his own life.
"I’ve lived my life trying not to make all the mistakes he made," Kinch said. That led him to become a cop.
Part of his life included visiting his mother and driving her around. She used a wheelchair because she had difficulty walking long distances.
On June 7, Kinch took her to Summerlin Hospital Medical Center for a checkup. Two days earlier she had a stent placed in her heart.
There were some problems with the pulmonary test, and Mascola told her son she would call him and tell him what needed to be done next.
That was the last time he spoke with his mother. Her death came days before Father’s Day and his 39th birthday.
Kinch was somber but calm as he addressed the media and valley residents Thursday asking for help finding his mother’s attackers.
Kinch doesn’t believe his mother was a target because of his position. Most crime is based on opportunity, he recalled from his time in the police academy.
Kinch has grieved. He now takes sanctuary in his job.
He believes the episode has made him a better detective. Now, he can empathize with victims’ families.
"I’ve walked in their shoes," he said.
Investigators are asking anyone with information about that night to come forward. They have only three pieces of the puzzle, Bedwell said.
"We know where she left from. We know where she ended up. And we know who she is," he said.
What’s imperative to investigators is what happened in between, Bedwell said.
Anyone who saw a woman in a wheelchair in the area of Lake Mead Boulevard, Simmons Street or Coran Lane that night or anything suspicious is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.
