Man arrested on murder charge in 5-year-old daughter’s 2019 death

A 25-year-old man was arrested in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, nearly a year after his girlfriend was arrested in the child’s death.

Richard Davis was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on Monday on one count of murder and six counts of child abuse with substantial bodily harm after police said the autopsy results in March bumped Davis from a person of interest to a suspect in the death, according to a motion filed by the state this month.

Davis’ girlfriend of six years, Shevhuan Miller, 23, was arrested in September on one count of murder and one count of child abuse after police said her story about what happened to the girl, Janiyah Russell, kept changing.

Davis filed a motion Tuesday to self-surrender and request house arrest, but the state’s filing in opposition of the motion lists Davis as a flight risk because of his admission that he lives in Louisiana half the time and doesn’t have a job in Las Vegas.

The 83-page motion filed by the state details the bruising, hemorrhaging, fractures and lacerations Janiyah had throughout her body before her death Sept. 11. Miller and Davis told police that the girl was beaten up by neighborhood kids and she abruptly became unresponsive the next morning.

Davis said he wasn’t home when Miller put the child in the bathtub around 5 a.m. and went outside to smoke a cigarette. When Miller came back in, the child was “stomach down” in the bathtub, according to the police report cited in the motion.

Miller told police she dressed the child, laid her on the couch and went back to bed for two hours after blowing in the child’s mouth “because she looked like she needed some air” and later turning up the heat because the child looked cold. When police were called around 8 a.m., the girl was taken to Sunrise Children’s Hospital, where her temperature had dropped below 88 degrees.

Davis told police he was donating plasma for money when Miller called and said the girl wasn’t breathing. He later told police he had spanked her with a belt about 20 times around Sept. 9.

The autopsy later showed the girl had “significant internal hemorrhaging and injuries.”

The coroner “had to use a ladle to remove the vast amount of hemorrhage” in the girl.

The Clark County coroner’s office said the girl died of blunt force trauma. Her death was ruled a homicide.

She was estimated to have died between 3 and 6 a.m. Sept. 11.

Davis’ request put forward Tuesday for house arrest was continued to October, and he remained in jail on $75,000 bail. He was previously given a bail condition to have no unsupervised contact with minors.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.