DA in Vegas to seek death at trial of man held in 3 killings

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Prosecutors said Friday they plan to seek the death penalty for a 29-year-old convicted felon accused of killing three men during an apparently random string of Las Vegas-area robberies.

John Anthony Carrillo faces three murder charges in the deaths of Ruben Garcia, 36, Abraham Acosta, 32, and Miles Smith, 55, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

“This is one of those exceptional cases where I feel comfortable giving the jury the option to impose the death penalty,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told the newspaper.

Wolfson noted that Carrillo had multiple prior violent felony convictions.

Carillo’s attorney, Robert Langford, said he’ll challenge the decision to seek the death penalty as unworkable and a waste of taxpayer money.

Langford noted that Nevada hasn’t overcome challenges to carry out an execution since the last convicted inmate volunteered for lethal injection in 2006.

Garcia was found dead in a home near downtown Las Vegas on July 1, the same day and Acosta, who lived in San Diego, was fatally shot at a gas station in Henderson.

Smith was found dead July 3 in an apartment not far from where Garcia was killed.

Carrillo told police he smoked methamphetamine, and investigators said they believed drug use played a role in the shootings.