Jrunisha Rainey, a friend of murder victim victims outside the Craig Ranch Villas apartment complex in North Las Vegas Wednesday, June 26, 2024. Five people were killed by a gunman Monday. A 13-year-old girl remained hospitalized with life-threatening wounds, police said.
Published Thursday, June 27, 2024 | 3:48 p.m.
Updated Thursday, June 27, 2024 | 5:39 p.m.
The series of events that culminated in the shooting deaths of five North Las Vegas residents and the alleged gunman taking his own life this week began with an argument between the suspect and his former girlfriend, authorities say.
North Las Vegas police, in a statement released Thursday, said Eric Adams, 48, was visiting a former girlfriend Monday night in a ground-floor unit of an apartment complex at 370 Casa Norte Drive when the two began arguing. Adams pulled out a gun and shot the woman’s 24-year-old daughter and her 22-year-old girlfriend, killing them both.
When a 20-year-old neighbor from an apartment upstairs came to intervene in the argument, Adams shot and killed him too, police said.
After shooting the neighbor, police said Adams went into the upstairs unit and again opened fire, killing the neighbor’s 59-year-old grandmother and 40-year-old mother, and injuring his 13-year-old sister. Two other family members, both in their teens, were hidden from Adams and were not harmed.
Adams then “took his ex-girlfriend hostage” and fled in a vehicle, according to police.
The woman was able to escape in the early-morning hours Tuesday, saw a Metro Police officer who was making an unrelated traffic stop, detailed the events that had taken place at the apartment complex and asked him for help, authorities said.
Meanwhile, North Las Vegas Police, responding to initial reports of a shooting, had arrived at the apartment complex and located the victims in the second-floor apartment. With the additional information provided by the girlfriend relayed by the Metro officer, North Las Vegas detectives then located the other three victims in the ground-floor apartment.
Just after 10 a.m. Tuesday, authorities received information that Adams was at a business in the 1500 block of East Lake Mead Boulevard.
Officers from a multiagency task force later located him about 3 miles west of the business, in a neighborhood in the 1600 block of Dwayne Stedman Avenue, police said. He was armed with a gun and fled into the backyard of a home, police said.
Officers ordered Adams to drop the gun, but he ignored them, police said.
Metro Police, who were assisting in the search for Adams, said he held the gun to his head and shot himself. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
The Clark County coroner’s office identified the 24-year-old victim as Kayla Harris and the two victims killed in the upstairs unit as Damiana Moreno, 59, and Amy Damian, 40.
The coroner has not yet identified the two other victims, but during a vigil Wednesday night, friends identified the other victims as Harris’ girlfriend, 22-year-old Jeannette Faria-Webster, and Amy Damian’s 20-year-old son, Christopher.
The 13-year-old who was shot in the upstairs apartment was taken to UMC Truama in critical condition, police said.
Harris was a basketball standout at Spring Valley High School and then played college basketball at Adams State University in southern Colorado, where she was working on a master’s degree in business administration, said David Tandberg, the university’s president.
In a statement, Tandberg called it a privilege “to watch Kayla excel on and off the court.”
“It feels nearly impossible to understand and cope with losing a young woman so early in her promising life,” he said.
The victims’ families held a vigil Wednesday night outside the apartment complex to honor their memories and share stories about their loved ones.
To those around her, Harris, a Las Vegas native and basketball player was always a leader, never failing to light up a room.
“We used to say to her that she would be a phenomenal coach one day,” Harris’ high school coach, Bill Hemberger, said.
Attendees brought red balloons — Harris’ favorite color — and candles, arranging them in the victims’ initials.
Harris’ cousin Tyrone Lathan led the group in a prayer, asking for guidance through the difficult grieving period.
Harris played at Adams State University in Colorado, where she graduated in December with an undergraduate degree. She was working on a master’s degree.
“We were privileged to watch Kayla excel on and off the court,” Adams State President David Tanberg said in a statement. “It feels nearly impossible to understand and cope with losing a young woman so early in her promising life.”
Officers searching for Adams confronted him Tuesday in a residential neighborhood before he died by suicide, police said.
Adams had a criminal history including domestic violence, according to Clark County Justice Court records. He was legally prohibited from owning a firearm in Nevada because he had been convicted of a felony.
J.R. Munoz, Moreno’s son and Damian’s brother, spoke during the vigil. He said he was struggling to come to terms with the loss.
“It's just devastating right now to know that these people that we love so much are not with us anymore,” Munoz said.
Lathan said he was not surprised by the large turnout for the vigil. It was emblematic of Harris’ positive impact on the community and Las Vegas residents growing weary of gun violence, he said.
“The turnout was just really the community saying enough is enough,” Lathan said.
North Las Vegas Police are still investigating the incident.
“We don’t prepare for this,” Harris’ brother Jalen Simmons said. “There’s not a room that she touched that wasn’t brighter because of her.”
