Las Vegas police book suspect in woman’s 1991 killing

Fingerprints found 25 years ago on a bottle of peppermint schnapps and a shot glass have led police to a suspect in the long-unsolved killing of a Las Vegas woman.

Carol Bishop, 50, was found dead on her bedroom floor in November 1991. She had been beaten and stabbed.

On Monday, Dale Bryant, now 63, was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a murder charge in Bishop’s death. Bryant has been serving a life sentence in Arkansas for fatally stabbing another woman in February 1992.

According to a Las Vegas police report, Bryant admitted during an interview with cold case detectives on May 17 that he was responsible for Bishop’s death.

On Nov. 15, 1991, Bishop’s employer, Tom Ballard, went to her residence after she failed to show up for work at a local convenience store. Ballard and a neighbor found Bishop’s door unlocked and entered the residence, according to the police report.

“When I found her I called police, and not a single officer asked me any questions,” Ballard said during a brief phone interview Tuesday.

Homicide detectives found two kitchen knives in Bishop’s chest and a plaster statue that was used to beat her head, according to the police report. The statue was broken into pieces.

“Bishop had been stabbed hard enough the handles of both knives broke off,” the report stated.

Evidence at the scene indicated that Bishop had hosted a guest before the attack. Two used paper plates, two used napkins and a large pizza box were found at a table in the residence.

The man who delivered the pizza gave police the description of a man, according to the report.

In 2012, the case was reviewed as a part of a grant-funded initiative to solve cold cases. Fingerprints from the scene were run through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System and matched existing prints from Bryant, according to the police report. The prints were found on a bottle of peppermint schnapps and a shot glass in the kitchen of Bishop’s home.

Detectives who reviewed Bishop’s case discovered that Bryant was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the 1992 murder case. Bryant is now facing a charge of murder with a deadly weapon in Bishop’s death.

Contact Lawren Linehan at llinehan@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0381. Follow @lawrenlinehan on Twitter.