Man indicted in slaying of missing Henderson woman

A man was indicted Thursday in the slaying of a 34-year-old Henderson woman who went missing more than a year ago.

Cheryl Beardall was last seen alive in July 2020, though her body has never been found. Prosecutors said they used social media, email and IP addresses to tie her former boyfriend, Philip Mathew O’Reilly, a 35-year-old felon, to her death.

Beardall’s two children, 11 and 14 at the time, last saw her — beaten and bloody but still alive — on a corner of a bed in the primary bedroom of their home in late July, authorities said.

The children told authorities that they stayed with O’Reilly for weeks after they last saw their mother alive.

But it was not until December that one of the children revealed that their mother was repeatedly the victim of physical abuse and had been whipped with a dog leash, prosecutors said. O’Reilly had the younger child bring him the dog leash and ice packs for the beatings, according to the indictment.

The younger child offered a “horrifying description” of the last time he saw his mother, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo.

After Beardall’s disappearance, and while the children were staying with O’Reilly, he threatened the older child, according to court records.

“He started talking about, like your mom’s gone,” the girl testified before a grand jury in April.

She said he threatened to “go into the bathroom and grab bleach and rubbing alcohol, and I wouldn’t even know what happened.”

In the days after Beardall disappeared, her shoes and car remained at her home near Boulder Highway and Lake Mead Parkway, prosecutors said. The children told authorities that their home started to smell like rotten meat.

Her family later found her abandoned car on Fiesta Way near Desert Inn Road and Boulder Highway.

Investigators first started putting the pieces together in September.

Beardall’s Facebook account had been accessed in August and later closed. That access was later traced to an IP address at a home in North Las Vegas, where O’Reilly was staying.

At one point, authorities allege, O’Reilly had messaged Beardall’s sister through her account.

Along with one count of murder with a deadly weapon, O’Reilly faces two counts of child abuse.

In another case, O’Reilly also faces 27 counts of lewdness, sexual assault with a minor, and child abuse, neglect or endangerment in connection with abuse and sexual attacks on two children dating back a decade before Beardall went missing.

O’Reilly was on house arrest in that case when he was arrested Thursday afternoon in connection with Beardall’s killing, authorities said.

In 2008, O’Reilly was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison for an attempted murder conviction. Prosecutors at the time said he slammed his Honda Civic into his former girlfriend’s pickup truck after she broke up with him.

An attorney for O’Reilly could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.