Christine Sanchez
Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017 | 9:45 p.m.
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About five months before North Las Vegas police in 2014 accused Christine Sanchez of fatally stabbing and shooting a female acquaintance, she was suspected of attempting to kill her boyfriend, according to court records.
Both cases were dismissed — the latest earlier this year — but Sanchez, 47, is again facing serious allegations after, according to Metro Police, she pumped bullets into three of her roommates over an ongoing dispute about lack of “respect.”
She’s currently jailed on three murder charges in the Dec. 22 deaths of Natasha Henry, Stanley Herring and Cordell Jones, police said.
In all three cases, she’s claimed innocence, and on Thursday her lawyer insinuated in court that in the latest killings, drug use may become a factor in her defense, according to the Associated Press.
The lawyer, Robert Langford, said Sanchez has a back-injury disability and takes prescription medication but did not elaborate.
Clark County prosecutor Jake Villani, who handled the 2014 murder case and the latest one, said he doubted drug use was responsible for what he termed Sanchez's violent history.
On April 23, 2014, Sanchez called 911, saying, “Please help me. My dog attacked him. He was trying to hurt me. He is bleeding.”
Officers arrived to find the crying woman and her two dogs covered in blood, according to an arrest report released Thursday. She told officers that her abusive boyfriend had broken through a door and had beat her and that her dogs attacked him.
A tattered doorway, a black eye and multiple bruises on the woman, as well as bite marks on the man, appeared to confirm her version of events, but there also was a knife near her when officers made contact with her, and there were stab wounds and defensive slashes on the man’s body. One of his lungs had been punctured.
He told Metro Police, according to the arrest report, “she stabbed me,” Sanchez said she recalled swinging the knife but not stabbing him, and the following month in court, the attempted murder and domestic battery charges were dropped, although it wasn’t immediately clear why.
In September that year, a woman who’d loaned Sanchez a car, which she was trying to get back, was found dead in her North Las Vegas apartment with stab and gunshot wounds, police said.
North Las Vegas police arrested her a few days later, but DNA testing did not connect Sanchez to the scene. A possible witness came forward with new information in 2015, and she was indicted by a grand jury, officials said. About six months ago, the state withdrew the case due to insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute her.
“As such, consistent with our obligation, we chose to dismiss the case voluntarily in June 2017,” said Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson this week.
On Dec. 22, officers arrived to a “problem house” in the 4300 block of Del Santos Drive, near Tropicana Avenue and Lamb Boulevard, and found the bodies of Henry, 43, Herring, 39, and Jones, 34, with gunshot wounds, according to Metro.
Sanchez, who uses the moniker “Lady Mousie,” and the homeowner were in an ongoing dispute with three of their roommates because they did not “respect them, their property, and the house,” police said.
Before fleeing, Sanchez, according to the homeowner, was holding a gun, and told the man to take care of her dog “because she was going to jail for what she had done,” police said. She told detectives that she’d heard gunshots, but had slept through the shooting.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
