Man pleads guilty to killing pregnant girlfriend in Las Vegas
More than three years after his death penalty trial was halted, a Las Vegas man who fatally stabbed his estranged pregnant girlfriend pleaded guilty Thursday to murder and robbery.
Eric Covington, 37, agreed to spend 31 years to life in prison for the November 2010 attack on 24-year-old Sagittarius Gomez.
Last year the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that a lower court judge was right to stop Covington’s trial after his lawyers raised questions about his mental capacity.
Prosecutors said that Covington stabbed Gomez more than 120 times in an hour because he did not want her to be with another man. She was seven months pregnant with their child.
Covington described the killing in a statement to police, according to prosecutors.
Neighbors testified that they heard loud noises and screams coming from Gomez’s East Sahara Avenue apartment in the early morning of Nov. 6, 2010, but none called police.
Gomez’s bloody body was found the next day after police, responding to a welfare check, broke open her apartment’s front door.
Besides first-degree murder, Covington faces one count each of manslaughter in the killing of an unborn child, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and robbery with a deadly weapon.
Covington told police he went to the east valley apartment they once shared to discuss their relationship. When the talk soured, Covington began to stab Gomez, police said at the time.
A psychologist who analyzed Covington during his October 2016 trial found that he had an IQ of 62. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing inmates with “mental retardation” violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
A judge is scheduled to formally sentence Covington in July. He is expected to receive credit for the time he has served in jail since his arrest shortly after the slaying.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.