Woman stabbed, husband found dead in central Las Vegas Valley

Residents said a woman’s screams echoed through their central valley apartment complex Monday morning.

“She was running through here screaming,” Canyon Club Apartments resident Michael Sterling said. “I heard helicopters, but before that I heard screaming.”

Sterling gripped his stomach and described the woman’s cries as “gut-wrenching.”

Las Vegas police said the woman had been stabbed. A short time later, they found her husband in the couple’s apartment, dead from what police suspect were self-inclicted stab wounds.

Sterling’s apartment is on the opposite end of the complex.

“I was at least a couple of hundred feet away,” he said, pointing out his balcony.

Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Steve Summers said a woman involved in a domestic altercation called police just after 10:20 a.m. to her apartment at 2665 S. Bruce St., just south of East Sahara Avenue. When officers arrived, she was found at the bottom of a stairwell with stab wounds to her stomach, neck and face.

Before she was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, she told police she was stabbed by her husband. The woman directed officers to the apartment they shared, where she said he was hiding.

The front door was wide open when police walked up the apartment stairs. Blood and signs of a violent struggle could be seen through the doorway, Summers said at the scene.

As of 1 p.m., police said she was still in surgery but in stable condition. Metro detectives were waiting at the hospital to speak to her after she woke up, Summers said.

Other witnesses also told police they believed the man was in the apartment hurting himself. When officers entered to check on him, they found the man dead in a back room with multiple stab wounds after an apparent suicide.

“We’re operating under the assumption that those were self-inflicted stab wounds based on witness statements,” Summers said.

He described both the man and woman as in their mid- to late 40s.

Just outside the crime scene, Sterling and another neighbor, Zakaria Mills, said the couple had moved in on Saturday.

“Normally this is stuff we see on the news,” Sterling said, stifling a nervous laugh. “I was actually so surprised.”

The two residents said Canyon Club is usually a quiet area.

“It’s just crazy,” Mills added. “My sister’s kids and my siblings play out here a lot.”

The details leading up to the stabbing were not immediately available.

Review-Journal writer Lawren Linehan contributed to this report. Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.