Mother of man killed in Las Vegas apartment fire recounts search for body

“It’s hard not to be angry,” Herrera told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I understand that they didn’t know he was in there, and they didn’t see him because he was covered by debris, but it’s difficult for me to know that he was there and they didn’t see him right away.”

A fire in an apartment complex Sunday evening killed 23-year-old Vincent Herrera and his boyfriend, 24-year-old Kameron Moore. Four people were hospitalized for burns and other injuries, and 30 residents have been displaced by the blaze.

Like most other weekends in the past several months, Herrera had been staying with Moore. When he did not return to his home in North Las Vegas where he lived with his family, his mother began to worry.

Other people told his mother not to panic — he was 23, and probably fine. But Herrera is a mother, with a mother’s instinct. She knew something was up.

On Monday, she called in to his job at Barnes & Noble in Henderson. He hadn’t shown up.

Then, Joe Carrillo, Vincent Herrera’s former partner and a friend of his and Moore’s, called Herrera looking for her son in order to tell him Moore had died in a fire.

She screamed and cried into the phone.

“I knew Vincent was with Kameron, and I was like, ‘Where is he? Where is my baby? What happened?” she said.

She called every hospital: nothing.

“I told my husband, ‘Drive me to the apartment complex. They have to have answers,’” Herrera said.

When she saw the fire chief outside the building, she jumped out of the car and told him she could not find her son. Fire Department investigators went back into the building to search.

During the long hours waiting for him, people entertained the idea that Vincent Herrera had been too sad about Moore’s passing and needed some time away. Again, Herrera knew.

“If he were somewhere else, he would have reached out to me. I would have heard something from him,” she said.

Five hours later, investigators found her son’s body covered in debris.

“But he wasn’t burned. It was the smoke that took him, and by some miracle, he was mostly safe from the burns, from the fire,” she said.

‘We can’t stand to be apart’

Since his death, his parents and four younger brothers have slept in their living room together.

“We just can’t stand to be apart,” she said. “Just the thought of being alone with our thoughts is kind of crushing.”

His 2-year-old brother seems to know something is wrong, Herrera said. But 9-year-old Syrus Herrera has found the new reality especially difficult to comprehend.

“Mom,” he cried to Herrera on Wednesday night. “I don’t know how I’m gonna be happy knowing Vincent’s not gonna come home anymore.”

At Christmas, Vincent Herrera wrote his brothers a letter saying that he wanted to get closer to them and be a better brother. He gave them journals to write in, hoping they could share a little about themselves on the pages, his mother said. Her son spent hours reading in the living room with Syrus and took him outside — the two went skating and on bike rides.

“He was a very, very special soul,” his mother said.

Books were his love language

As Herrera spoke to the Review-Journal about her son’s memory, she looked out at his bookcase which sat in her living room.

“Everything that he could get his hands on he read,” Herrera said.

At his vigil on Wednesday night, people left “It” by Stephen King and “Massacre of the Dreamers” by Ana Castillo, which he had recently gifted his mother.

Books were his love language, Herrera said. He often gifted her books for Christmas and birthday, and would regularly bring home classics from his job at the book store — he knew they were her favorite.

Vincent Herrera was also an artist. A graduate of Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, he loved to sketch and paint. He recently showed his mother some of his digital animation work, and his room was decorated with anime and what she referred to as an “eclectic collection.”

“Vincent’s always been who he was,” Herrera said.

He told his family in junior high school that he liked boys and girls. His mother said his sexuality was an important part of him but did not make up his whole identity.

Herrera did not know Moore well, but she said she met him for the first time recently and that he was very sweet. He and Moore had been friends for a few years, but the two only recently began dating, according to Herrera. She said that if her son loved him, she knew Moore was a good person.

Omar Williams, Moore’s supervisor at his job at Giving Home Health Care, described him as super smart.

“He’s a kid that challenged what the standard was, and it only made us better,” Williams said. “He had a bright, bright future. I know we had a lot of plans for him, for his growth.”

The company helps people who are sick receive benefits before passing away, and Williams said Moore played a huge role in helping patients get access to insurance cards.

He said Moore had a tattoo for every milestone in his life and loved his cats. Employees will wear crazy socks to honor him next week, as Moore often did.

“This is the toughest thing that we’ve experienced working here,” Williams said.

Ronise Herrera encouraged people to stand up for people discriminated against in society, just as her son once did. She also asked for support in her gofundme for funeral costs.

“Vincent was kind, and he was a bright light. I just want everybody to be kind. That’s what he wanted in this world.”

Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com.