Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Police arrest 18-year-old man in connection with girl’s murder

Jeremy Joseph Strohmeyer of Long Beach was arrested for investigation of the murder of Sherrice Iverson, whose body was found in a women's restroom at the Primadonna Resort, one of a cluster of three hotel-casinos on the Nevada-California border 43 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Strohmeyer was taken into custody at his home in Long Beach on Wednesday night, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sgt. Bill Keeton said. He is being held without bail in Long Beach pending extradition proceedings to Las Vegas, police said.

An 18-year-old friend of Strohmeyer turned himself in to La Palma, Calif., police Wednesday. He was released after detectives determined he was not involved in the girl's murder. His name was not released.

Keeton said Strohmeyer gained the trust of the girl by playing with her, at one point playing hide-and-seek inside the casino.

Strohmeyer was positively identified as the suspect in the girl's killing, Keeton said. Many of the tips police received included the suspect's peculiar physical description, including nipple rings and a tongue stud, Keeton said.

Strohmeyer also allegedly made statements implicating himself in the girl's murder, Keeton said. Police refused to elaborate.

Authorities said they have physical evidence from the crime scene connecting Strohmeyer to Sherrice's slaying, but again declined to elaborate.

Police said the man who followed the girl into the restroom was a white male in his late teens to early 20s with light brown to blond hair.

Keeton said Strohmeyer matches the physical description.

The girl was visiting hotel-casinos in the tiny town of Primm, Nev., with her father and 14-year-old brother when she was left alone in game arcades early Sunday.

Police said Strohmeyer, his friend and the girl are seen on video surveillance tapes, and that Strohmeyer is seen trailing her into a women's restroom.

The suspect is seen leaving 25 minutes later. The girl was found about 5 a.m. Sunday in a toilet stall.

The friend who had accompanied Strohmeyer on the trip to the Primadonna told detectives that he saw the girl "horseplaying around" with Strohmeyer, Long Beach police Cpl. Harry Erickson said.

During a hide-and-seek game, the girl hid behind a video game near the women's restroom, then "playfully" ran from Strohmeyer into the restroom, Keeton said. Strohmeyer allegedly followed.

When the friend also went inside the restroom, he saw Strohmeyer struggling with the girl and left, police said.

"He saw the girl being grabbed, she was alive and then he fled the bathroom," Keeton said.

"He got scared because he couldn't get his friend to leave her alone," Erickson said.

Police refused to identify the friend, but said he is also an 18-year-old high school student.

Police received about 100 tips on the murder, some from as far away as Canada.

Strohmeyer also had a phony identification card that he used to get alcohol at the hotel-casino, Keeton said.

Long Beach police arrested Strohmeyer after setting up surveillance at his house. The teen-ager was arrested while leaving through a side door, but police don't know whether he was trying to flee or merely leaving the home.

Meanwhile, authorities said Sherrice's father had been investigated for alleged child abuse four years ago when he brought his son to a hospital with severely burned hands.

The girl died after security guards warned her father, Leroy Iverson, 57, and her 14-year-old brother about leaving the girl alone in casino arcades in the pre-dawn hours.

Repeated phone calls to Iverson's Los Angeles home Wednesday went unanswered and an Associated Press staffer who went to the home was told by a woman he was unavailable for comment. The woman would not give her name.

Iverson hired attorney Eddie J. Harris, a lawyer in Johnnie Cochran Jr.'s law firm who said he has known Iverson for 30 years.

Harris called Iverson a "conscientious parent" who let Sherrice out of his sight only once when she went to the women's restroom.

Iverson was investigated for alleged child abuse in 1993 by the Los Angeles Police Department and the District Attorney's office, authorities from both agencies told The Associated Press Wednesday.

Iverson was never charged. The investigation began when hospital officials notified police that Iverson had brought in his 2-year-old son, whose hands were severely burned, said Deputy District Attorney Susan Powers.

Her office declined to prosecute, Powers said, because medical evidence was inconclusive as to what caused the child's second- and third-degree burns.

According the Los Angeles D.A.'s file, Powers said, the child's mother was dead. Powers declined to reveal any further information. A Public Records Act request filed by The AP to review the file was denied Wednesday by the D.A.'s office.

A source close to Primadonna Resorts Inc. told The AP that security guards at Buffalo Bill's hotel-casino found the girl alone three different times, each time making sure she returned to either her father or brother.

The girl's body was discovered at 5 a.m. at the Primadonna Resort when her father asked a hotel employee to check on her.

Keeton said the girl was found sitting on a toilet stool in a corner stall. She had been forcibly raped and strangled, police said.

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Associated Press Writers Robert Macy and Deborah Hastings contributed to this report.

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