Psychologist booked on murder charge at Henderson jail in wife’s death
In a stunning turnaround, longtime psychologist Gregory “Brent” Dennis was arrested Thursday in connection with the January 2015 slaying of his wife, Henderson attorney Susan Winters.
For the past two years, her death has been listed as a suicide.
Attorney Anthony Sgro, who represents Winters’ parents, said the family is relieved now that Dennis is behind bars.
“Their faith in our criminal justice system has been restored, and they are grateful to the district attorney’s office, as well as the Henderson Police Department, for reopening this investigation and drawing the same conclusion that the family did, which is that Susan did not take her own life,” Sgro said.
Dennis, 54, who runs a Boulder City mental health clinic, was booked into the Henderson Detention Center with no bail at 7:49 a.m. Thursday on a charge of open murder with a deadly weapon, jail records show.
A Henderson police spokesman said Dennis was taken into custody without incident during a traffic stop near Eastern Avenue and Coronado Center Drive at 7:30 a.m. as part of a “lengthy” homicide investigation.
Based mainly on information provided by Dennis, the Clark County coroner’s office had concluded that Winters, a part-time North Las Vegas judge, killed herself on Jan. 3, 2015.
But in a 27-page declaration of arrest obtained Thursday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Henderson Detective Ryan Adams alleged that Dennis originally lied to police about his wife’s death and had a financial motive to kill her.
Dennis stood to inherit roughly $2 million, including a $1 million life insurance policy, upon his wife’s death and was dealing with a cocaine addiction that was draining his finances, according to the report.
The licensed psychologist also wanted to prevent his wife from exposing his addiction and harming his professional livelihood, Adams wrote.
Police found prescription painkillers in his possession when he was taken into custody Thursday, according to the report.
Defense lawyer Richard Schonfeld, who represents Dennis, criticized the arrest and said he would seek bail for his client.
“I was surprised after the district attorney’s office had already convened a grand jury that they would arrest Dr. Dennis without having secured an indictment,” Schonfeld said. “I look forward to litigating these issues.”
The coroner’s office concluded in 2015 that Winters, 48, died by consuming a lethal combination of prescription painkillers and antifreeze at the Henderson home she shared with Dennis and the couple’s two daughters.
NEW EVIDENCE
Coroner John Fudenberg said Thursday his office has not changed its official suicide ruling, but is continuing to look at new information authorities provided.
“We have been given information and are working with the district attorney’s office and the Henderson Police Department and doing a formal review of the case,” he said.
A Sept. 15 story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal raised questions about whether Winters killed herself, disclosing that the district attorney’s office had informed Dennis that he was a target of a county grand jury investigation into his wife’s death.
In December, Henderson police executed search warrants in a reopened homicide investigation, and prosecutors began calling witnesses to the grand jury.
Two years ago, Dennis told authorities that he believed his wife killed herself, police reports show. He suggested she had ingested antifreeze.
Dennis explained that he called 911 the morning of her death after he found her unresponsive in bed. Earlier, an emotionally upset Winters had been drinking and taking antidepressant medication, including Xanax, he said.
But in the declaration of arrest, Adams wrote: “At this time, it is not known exactly how these substances were introduced into Winters’ body, however, it is known that Dennis could not have known what he claimed to know when first contacted unless he murdered Susan Winters.”
According to the report, a nurse practitioner who used to work for Dennis may have “knowingly or unwittingly” been the source of the painkillers found in his wife’s body. The nurse had the ability to prescribe drugs and did it for patients 128 times in the three months leading up to Winters’ death, according to the declaration of arrest.
A lawsuit filed in August 2015 by her parents, Avis and Danny Winters of Oklahoma, blamed Dennis for her abrupt demise and called the original police investigation inadequate.
As the case unfolded, Sgro and his law partner, former District Attorney David Roger, developed evidence suggesting motives for Dennis.
Roger laid out the evidence in a 49-page investigative report, reviewed by the Review-Journal and provided to the district attorney’s office and Henderson police.
SCRUBBED COMPUTERS
Adams cited the report extensively in his declaration of arrest.
The Roger report alleges that Dennis — not his wife, as Dennis maintained — had done internet research before she died about the effects of consuming antifreeze.
Adams said the police investigation uncovered additional evidence that suggests Dennis did the research from a computer at his mental health clinic, rather than at the couple’s home.
Detectives also gathered evidence that shows Dennis, aided by a computer expert with a felony record, tampered with his computers to “scrub” potentially harmful information and cover up his actions in his wife’s death.
In a copy of a sworn deposition obtained by the Review-Journal last year, Dennis disclosed his own personal problems. He admitted buying drugs from a known street dealer and seeking treatment for his addiction.
Evidence uncovered by Roger with the help of a former FBI agent showed that Dennis had contact with the dealer, Jeffrey Paul Crosby, in the hours before and after his wife’s death.
Crosby, 44, who has a 2011 drug dealing conviction, was arrested in July and later was indicted on a cocaine trafficking charge.
He pleaded not guilty and is free on bail.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter.