Prosecutors to seek death penalty in 3 murder cases

By Cara McCoy

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 | 4:29 p.m.

The district attorney’s office will seek the death penalty against a man accused of using an ax to chop a Las Vegas woman and her infant, an attack that left the woman disfigured and the baby dead.

Prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty for Richard Freeman and Gregory Hover, who are charged in the murder and sexual assault of a Hooters casino waitress, and against Will Onie Sitton, accused in the beating death of an elderly man.

The decisions came Wednesday after a meeting of the district attorney’s death penalty review committee, which evaluates cases after a preliminary hearing or grand jury indictment.

Harold Montague, 33, is facing multiple felony counts, including murder, attempted murder and attempted murder of a police officer in connection with an attack in the late morning of Feb. 11 in the 1600 block of San Pedro Avenue, near Sahara Avenue and South Maryland Parkway, on Sandra Lisset Castro and her baby, four-month-old Damian Avila Castro.

Authorities have said the attack, which happened shortly before noon in a residential neighborhood, appeared to be random in nature. Montague’s attorneys have said he will plead not guilty by reason of insanity when he is arraigned May 3.

Freeman and Hover are accused in two cases. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against them on charges stemming from the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of 21-year-old Prisma Contreras of Las Vegas.

Contreras, a waitress at the Mad Onion at the Hooters casino, was reported missing by her family after she didn’t return from a shift at work. Her body was found inside her burned Jeep Liberty by Boulder City Police in a rural area on Jan. 15.

The two men are also accused in a violent home invasion that left a man dead and the man’s wife with a gunshot to the face. Prosecutors have said elements of that case could lead them to pursue the death penalty, but no decision will be made in that case until after the conclusion of a preliminary hearing, which is set to resume Thursday.

Separately, Hover is facing a battery charge after allegedly slicing another inmate at the Clark County Detention Center.

Sitton, 47, and a co-defendant, Jacquie Schafer, 46, are facing multiple felony counts in connection with the death of 68-year-old Brian Haskell, who was found beaten to death in his condo late last year. Authorities said he could have been dead for a month before he was found.

Prosecutors opted not to pursue the death penalty against Schafer. A third co-defendant, Sitton’s brother, Robert Sitton, pleaded guilty in February to second-degree murder.

In Nevada, jurors make final decisions about capital punishment. First, a person must be found guilty of first-degree murder. In a separate penalty phase, jurors weigh aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances in reaching a decision.