Tuesday, Sept. 30, 1997 | 10:17 a.m.
"I swear to God he didn't do it," said Priscilla Willard. "I saw him sleeping on the couch at that time. I can't sit by and let this innocent kid go to prison."
But Metro Police stand by the arrest of Linaman, 19, on Thursday, several hours after 20-year-old Richard Radcliffe was stabbed to death in the parking lot of his apartment complex.
"He was arrested on probable cause that we still believe in," homicide Sgt. Ken Hefner said.
Police said Radcliffe was killed shortly after 6:30 a.m. in an apartment complex parking lot.
Linaman, who recently moved to Las Vegas from Casper, Wyo., was arrested at a shopping mall. He was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon.
Radcliffe's wife and her father, Howard Davis, left the apartment with the youngest of the couple's two children. Radcliffe and his 3-year-old son, Adam, were still asleep. Davis said he walked his daughter, who was going to work, out to her car and put his 2-month-old granddaughter, Amber, in her car seat.
As he walked back to the apartment, he noticed the front door was open. When he walked in he saw a burglar.
The intruder had grabbed a fannypack and money from inside the apartment, Davis said.
Radcliffe woke up and chased the burglar outside. He caught up with the intruder, who stabbed him and then ran away, police said.
Neighbors upstairs from the Radcliffes said the description of the man - 5 feet 9, wearing long jean shorts, tennis shoes and a long blond ponytail - sounded like a friend of their son. That led police to Linaman.
Detectives went to the house, owned by Linaman's stepfather, about four miles away from where the murder occurred, and the man told them Linaman was asleep at the time of the stabbing.
Police searched Linaman's bedroom, but didn't find the fannypack.
Also, Linaman's father, Kevin Linaman, said his son is 6 feet 2, not 5 feet 9, No blood evidence was found in a knife sheath confiscated from inside Seth Linaman's car, police said.
archive
