Judge considers Christmas for killer

District Judge Jeffrey Sobel apparently is re-thinking his decision to permit an admitted killer to stay free on bail and spend Christmas with his family before his January sentencing.

Sobel summoned 33-year-old David Wayne Crawford back to court Thursday to provide assurances he won't flee before the sentencing, since the lightest possible sentence would still require him to serve the next 40 years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.

Crawford is free on $360,000 bail posted by his aging parents.

"If I were in your position, I don't know what I would do," the judge told the defendant as he stood beside his mother. "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you're ready to do it?" Sobel asked.

Crawford assured him he would appear as scheduled, noting that by following through with the agreement "it will save my mom and dad a lot of financial problems."

"If he were to skip, I wouldn't have any place to live," said his mother, Anna Crawford, who has secured the bail bond with her $200,000 Pahrump home, other property and General Motors stock worth about $100,000.

Deputy District Attorney Michael O'Callaghan said Metro Police homicide detectives saw stocks in the home that appeared to total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

He suggested that would provide the parents with a nest egg even if David Crawford jumped bail.

The case is set to return to court Thursday so that David Crawford's attorney, Scott Bindrup, can provide evidence that the killer won't have access to a passport and for a determination about the actual value of the parents' stock portfolio.

Crawford's motive to run may have been enhanced when O'Callaghan said he intends to ask Sobel that he sentence Crawford to life in prison with no chance for parole for the shooting death of his fiancee two years ago.

Crawford pleaded guilty last month to charges of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. He admitted that he shot and killed 26-year-old Gloria Joann Dugan in her southeast Las Vegas home in April 1997.

Crawford had waived his Justice Court preliminary hearing in 1997 and indicated that he was going to plead guilty to charges after spending Christmas of that year with his family.

But he did not follow through with the deal and instead pleaded not guilty. A delay in the trial until Aug. 30 allowed him to spend another Christmas at home.

Then, as his time was running out, he finally accepted the plea bargain with the agreement that he could spend one last Christmas as a free man.

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