Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000 | 4:14 a.m.
Henderson Police have turned over more evidence linking three suspects in the Bellagio casino robbery with the ambush slayings of two armored car guards.
Chief Michael Mayberry said he is confident there is sufficient evidence for prosecutors to bring murder charges against Jose Vigoa and Luis Suarez for the slayings of Armored Transport officers Gary Prestidge and Richard Sosa outside a Ross discount department store.
Gunmen opened fire on the guards with automatic weapons as they made a delivery to the store.
The third suspect in the March 3 fatal holdup - Oscar Cisneros Sanchez - hanged himself in his cell earlier this month.
"The bulk of the investigation is now complete," Mayberry said during a Wednesday news conference.
Prosecutors said it could take a long time to review the volumes of evidence that took Henderson Police 8,100 hours to collect.
"We're moving in the right direction, but evidence isn't always admissible in court," Clark County District Attorney Stewart Bell said.
Bell compared the amount of evidence being gathered against the suspects to the Ted Binion murder case that ended with jury convictions of Rick Tabish and Sandy Murphy.
The cases of the two remaining defendants in the June 3 heist at the Bellagio were consolidated Tuesday.
Prosecutors and attorneys for Vigoa and Suarez are scheduled to return to court Nov. 1, when District Judge Kathy Hardcastle will set a trial date for the two who are accused of making off with $160,000 in cash and chips from the Bellagio's main cashier cage.
Suarez and Vigoa are also suspects in robberies at the New York-New York, Mandalay Bay, Desert Inn and MGM Grand hotels.
Clark County Sheriff Jerry Keller says he has turned over evidence to prosecutors in all but the New York-New York heist.
"It's a very clear connection between the three," he said.
Sanchez confessed to being at the scene of the Henderson homicides and implicated Vigoa and Suarez as participants. His DNA also was recovered at the crime scene.
But Bell said his statements cannot be used against the other two suspects.
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