Clark County jail inmate may be charged with cellmate’s death
An inmate in the Clark County Detention Center may face an open murder charge after Las Vegas police said his cellmate was strangled on Sunday.
A corrections officer conducting a walkthrough at the jail found 59-year-old Blancy Yonko unresponsive in a cell on Sunday, the Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release Thursday. Officers detained Yonko’s cellmate, 39-year-old Steven Revell, and took Yonko to University Medical Center in critical condition.
An investigation indicates that the cellmates “had a confrontation inside their cell” and that Revell strangled Yonko, police said in the release. Yonko died at the hospital on Tuesday.
Police said they will pursue an open murder charge in the case, but Revell had not yet been charged with that offense as of Thursday.
The Clark County coroner’s office determined Yonko’s cause of death as ligature strangulation and the manner was homicide.
Revell, who is homeless, was housed at the jail on an attempted murder charge stemming from the stabbing of a Nebraska man at the Fremont Street Experience on Dec. 5. Police said that attack was “completely unprovoked.” The victim in that case survived.
Contact Alexis Ford at aford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexisdford on Twitter.