18-year-old facing murder charge in Strip hotel room shooting
An 18-year-old woman is facing a murder charge in connection with a fatal shooting at the Luxor in June.
Emma Kusak, who was 17 when she was arrested on June 29, is accused of shooting and killing 36-year-old Charles Satrustegui, of Glendale, California.
According to a Metropolitan Police Department arrest report released Thursday, Kusak told police she had met up with Satrustegui the day before but robbed him at gunpoint after he tried to kick her out of his hotel room.
In a police interview, Kusak said she shot Satrustegui when he lunged for the gun. She turned herself into police the morning of June 29, the report said.
Kusak was initially booked into the Juvenile Detention Center, but she was transferred to the Clark County Detention Center on Wednesday, jail records show.
She appeared in court on Thursday morning for an initial appearance. Justice of the Peace Rebecca Saxe did not hear arguments regarding Kusak’s bail, and the judge scheduled another hearing in the case for Tuesday, court records show.
Kusak faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon.
According to her arrest report, Kusak told police that she became friends with Satrustegui through the dating app Bumble. He was in town on June 28 and had asked her to hang out that night. While at his hotel room at the Luxor, Kusak said Satrustegui showed her his handgun.
Satrustegui told Kusak to leave the hotel room during the early hours of June 29, Kusak told police. She initially claimed that the two got into an argument and that she shot Satrustegui because she thought “he was going to attack her,” the report said.
Kusak later told police that when Satrustegui was kicking her out of the hotel room, she “became desperate” and took his gun in order to rob him. She said that as she was robbing Satrustegui, she shot him when he lunged for the gun.
“Emma said she didn’t mean to shoot him and didn’t want to shoot him, but that she had nowhere to go and didn’t want to go back to jail,” the report said.
According to the arrest report, Satrustegui’s body was found in the hotel with two gunshot wounds to his head.
Kusak remained in the Clark County Detention Center on Thursday without bail.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
