Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Defense in clerk’s killing says there’s no physical evidence

Although a Nellis Air Force Base sergeant moonlighting as a convenience store clerk did everything a robber asked of him, the gunman "gratuitously fired a bullet into him," Deputy District Attorney David Roger said.

During opening statements Wednesday in the murder trial of 21-year-old Wilbert Leslie, the prosecutor told how a string of witnesses will link him to the Aug. 9, 1994, slaying of William Prewitt in the store at 3589 N. Nellis Blvd.

But Deputy Public Defender Kedric Bassett kept repeating, "There's no physical evidence to link the defendant to the crime."

He said that a graphic security camera videotape of the incident showed the killer repeatedly touched the counter but the fingerprints retrieved from there didn't match Leslie's.

That video, although the quality is not good enough to make out the killer, shows the gunman used his left hand to fire the fatal bullet into Prewitt's chest, Bassett noted.

Leslie, he told the jury in District Judge Stephen Huffaker's courtroom, is right handed.

Roger said that Leslie has been linked to the murder weapon that was recovered from his girlfriend's car after the case was broken open by a tip to Secret Witness several weeks after the shooting.

The woman, Rhesa Gamble, is expected to testify at the trial that the gun belonged to Leslie and that he told her after the incident, "I killed him. I killed him. He wouldn't give me the money."

Bassett noted that Leslie's fingerprints were not found on the murder weapon.

The defense attorney added that Gamble agreed to testify against Leslie in exchange for the dismissal of murder charges against her in Prewitt's death.

"Who knows what the truth is," Bassett commented.

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