Tuesday, May 23, 2023 | 4:17 p.m.
Arionna Taylor
Erika Covington
Bullet casings, surveillance video and social media posts led police to arrest two 20-year-old women for the May 15 murder and robbery of a man in a hotel room at a Las Vegas Strip resort, according to Metro Police records.
Arionna Taylor and Erika Covington, both 20, were charged May 17 with open murder, robbery, conspiracy murder and conspiracy robbery in connection to the homicide of Bryan Altamirano-Solano.
A housekeeper at the resort, located at 3570 South Las Vegas Boulevard, found Altamirano-Solan dead after entering the room about 11:19 a.m., a report states. Police and medical personal responded and determined he died from an apparent gunshot wound to the chest.
Hotel security informed police that the room was registered to a woman with check-in on May 14 for one night.
Police contacted the woman who told officers she met the man via a phone application. Their relationship grew, and they met on the night of May 14 at the hotel. They spent several hours in the room before she left at 1 a.m. She told police she assumed the man stayed at the hotel room for the night.
Surveillance video showed the woman and Altamirano-Solano checking into her room at about 9 p.m. The video than shows him walking her to the valet where she picked up her vehicle at 1:14 a.m.
About 35 minutes later the man can be seen on video talking to two different females later identified as Taylor and Covington. Fifteen minutes later the women enter his room.
Ten minutes after entering the room Taylor and Covington are seen on camera running away from the room, the report says.
The women appear to be carrying a brown bag that the victim was seen with upon check-in at the resort, the report notes. Security cameras tracked the females entering a white sedan nearby. A check of the vehicle’s license plate revealed it was stolen April 11, according to the report.
Police found a cartridge casing bearing the headstamp “Hornady,” blood, various glass bottles, soda cans, a silver earring, cellular device, and brown hat in the hotel room.
A forensic laboratory report linked the cartridge casing to a May 10 domestic battery event in the 4200 block of South Pecos Road.
Detectives watched body camera footage from the officer who responded to the domestic dispute, where Taylor was listed as a victim. Detectives determined Taylor was one of the suspects who appeared in the video surveillance.
A public Instagram post showed Taylor wearing the same hairstyle and clothing seen in the surveillance tapes, the report says. Police identified Covington by other Instagram posts made by Taylor.
Both women were interviewed by police, the report says.
Taylor told police she had a bad memory due to a car accident, so she was unable to recall details about the day. She first told police she saw her mom for Mother’s Day and then went to bed. After seeing photographs from video surveillance, she remembered being at a Las Vegas Strip property.
She told police she didn’t remember any other details and that detectives “needed to do their job”.
Covington told police she spent the night at Taylor’s house. When shown the surveillance photographs, she agreed that was her and stated she met the man in the valet area, the report says. She also told detectives that the man didn’t speak any Spanish, so Taylor used a translator app on her phone. She followed the two to a room on the fifth floor.
When asked what happened in the room, she requested a lawyer and all questioning was stopped, the report says.
