Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Twice widowed, she finds a way to forgive her husbands’ killers

Zita Doyle and Deceased Husband Cesar Flores

L.E. Baskow

Zita Doyle is surrounded by her husband Cesar Flores’ extensive toy collection in their home Friday, Aug. 8, 2014. He was recently killed while riding his bicycle by a driver who has been accused of DUI.

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Zita Doyle sorts through a box of action figures from her husband Cesar Flores' extensive toy collection about their home on Friday, August 8, 2014. He was recently killed while riding his bicycle by a driver who has been accused of DUI.

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Cesar Flores was pleased to have this framed Michael Jordan collection of Sports Illustrated covers, Flores originally from Chicago and a big Bulls fan on Friday, August 8, 2014.

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Photo of Cesar Flores about some of his action figures on Friday, August 8, 2014.

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Photo of Cesar Flores with Michael Jordan handprints, he originally from Chicago and a big Bulls fan on Friday, August 8, 2014.

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Photo of Cesar Flores and Zita Doyle' during happier times at Wrigley Field in Chicago on Friday, August 8, 2014.

It’s an August afternoon, and Zita Doyle is taking inventory of her living room. Without her husband, Cesar Flores, it’s hard to know what everything is worth.

There’s a “Star Wars” TIE Fighter hanging from the ceiling, Chicago Bulls posters on the walls and a collection of baseball figurines arranged on a counter, just the way he liked it. A life’s worth of collector’s items.

Surrounded by all of it, Doyle, 52, is overwhelmed. She wants to sell most of the collection but isn’t sure where to start.

On the floor nearby is a bike seat and towel covered in tools. Flores had been trying to make a more comfortable seat for his new bike.

In the weeks leading to his July 25 death, he rode it often.

•••

When Doyle and Flores moved in together in 2007, he turned a corner of their house into a memorial for Doyle's first husband. It wasn’t much — just a collage of old photos — but it was important to Flores that his wife's previous husband be remembered.

“We are not forgetting that man,” he told Doyle.

In fading Polaroids, Doyle’s first husband beams at the camera. The two had been married for 22 years. Michael Doyle died Jan. 11, 2003.

Zita Doyle was asleep that early Saturday morning in the couple’s Los Angeles home while her husband stopped at Dusty’s bar, as he had many times before. He worked the graveyard shift at a computer call center and had friends who worked at the bar. He would help them close, sometimes play darts and always make sure female patrons got to their cars safely.

Except this time, there was a fight. Two customers had a disagreement and took the issue into the parking lot. Michael Doyle went out, saw people being attacked and, according to his wife, tried to intervene. Doyle was shot in the chest and killed.

The couple lived a block away from the bar. Someone told one of Zita’s neighbors to knock on her door. It was 6 a.m. when she found out.

•••

It took three years for the case against Michael Doyle’s killer to be resolved. Zita Doyle went to court every day.

She started smoking to deal with the stress. She felt angry and isolated. The loss of her husband became too much to bear. She didn’t like who she was anymore.

Doyle was devastated when she found out the district attorney had negotiated a lighter sentence for her husband’s killer — Paul Diaz pleaded no contest to one count of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to three years in state prison — but Doyle resolved to move on. She began volunteering for the Make A Wish Foundation.

“I had to find reasons within me not to hold it against anybody else,” she said. “So I’ve forgiven him.”

Years passed, and Doyle thought she’d never find another partner, much less another husband.

But a niece set up a Myspace page for Doyle, and she started getting messages from men. She dismissed most of them, until one day she received a message that surprised her. The man said he liked her smile. He had seen a photo on Doyle’s profile of her dressed as a pirate while volunteering with her charity group.

At first, Doyle hesitated. She didn’t want another relationship.

The pair talked online for several months before Flores suggested they meet. They hit it off. They shared similar backgrounds and a love of helping others.

They moved in together in Los Angeles but soon grew tired of waking up to helicopters, gunshots and sirens. They moved to Las Vegas in 2007. Flores went first, and Doyle followed. They lived in a hotel for a year, then moved into a house near the M Resort.

Flores took odd jobs. He frequented antique stores where he hunted for collectibles. Sometimes he sold them for a profit, sometimes he kept them.

An amateur filmmaker, Flores turned their front room into a museum of pop culture. Video game and Scarface posters lined the walls. Action figures littered tables. He was determined to finish “Mafio-so,” his screenplay about a mobster who switches lives with a more conventional guy.

Flores spent hours rearranging his mementos, setting up camera shots for comedy skits. Doyle didn’t mind the mess.

“It used to make him so happy,” she said.

•••

On July 25, Doyle received another afterhours knock on the door.

The coroner stood on her doorstep with a highway patrol officer. For the first time in a while, she felt like smoking.

Flores had been killed about a mile from their house while riding his new bicycle. He was on his way back from visiting an antique store.

Police say the driver, 36-year-old Kelly Harney, was drunk and high. Harney lived in the same development as Doyle and Flores. She was charged with felony DUI.

Neighbors call the stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard where Flores was hit, between Pyle Avenue and Frias Avenue, “a raceway.” The boulevard narrows from four lanes to two, and motorists race to get ahead. It’s practically pitch black at night.

A traffic light was recently added at Cactus Avenue, a block south. Residents wonder if it would have saved Flores’ life had it been operational in July.

At a vigil at the crash site, friends and family tie a portrait of Flores to a wooden cross. They remember him as kind and genuine, someone who wanted more than anything to make sure others were OK.

“Cesar believed if you were happy, then the whole world would run right,” said Tony Calabria, a formerly homeless gambling addict whom Doyle and Flores took into their home.

Doyle opens a folder on her computer and clicks on a video clip. Most show Flores setting up a skit or playing a prank.

In one video, Calabria hides in a Darth Vader costume as Flores and his sister walk into frame. Calabria reaches out suddenly with a toy lightsaber. Flores’ sister shrieks. Cesar lets out a belly laugh that lasts a full minute.

Doyle likes hearing his laugh again.

•••

Sunlight splashes into the kitchen. Doyle’s voice trails off. It happens a lot nowadays.

“Sometimes you just forget what you’re doing,” she said.

She doesn’t blame the woman accused of killing Flores. Doyle hopes she gets help.

Holding an orange folder, Doyle thumbs through papers from Flores’ life, including a Writer’s Guild registration for “Mafio-so,” a document that filled Flores with pride.

Two months after her husband’s death, Doyle has sold about 50 items and given others away. Profits have been just enough to cover her expenses, but Doyle wants to sell more and give half to charity.

On a display case in the front room of Doyle’s house sits a collection of Star Wars items: R2-D2s of different sizes, Millennium Falcons. In the middle is a ’70s playset of the interior of the Death Star. Inside, a small figure of Princess Leia clings to Han Solo.

It is barely distinguishable, but Doyle sees it. It was the first present she got Flores.

No matter what happens, Doyle said she’ll never sell it or give it away. “That reminds me the most of him,” she said.

Researcher Rebecca Clifford-Cruz contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of story stated incorrectly that Tony Calabria was formerly an alcoholic. | (September 15, 2014)

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