Love pleas in elderly man's stabbing death

A woman, who was the uncharged driver in a 1996 double homicide at a Las Vegas restaurant, has pleaded guilty to killing an elderly North Las Vegas man last year.

In the plea bargain on Friday, Angela Love pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with the use of a deadly weapon and agreed to take the maximum sentence of eight to 20 years. She will have to serve the eight years before she will be eligible for parole.

Love, 26, decided to take the deal rather than stand trial on murder charges that could have resulted in a life prison term with no possibility of parole.

Formal sentencing is set for March 23.

In March 1999 North Las Vegas police detectives arrested Love for the slaying of 63-year-old William Taylor in his apartment at 2125 Las Vegas Blvd. North. The victim had been bludgeoned, stabbed several times and was shot in the chest three times with a pellet gun.

Police believed the motive was robbery, and the slaying was an attempt to cover that up. While there were indications two other people may have been involved in the incident, only Love was charged.

In an April 1996 double killing that occurred during a robbery of the Lone Star Steak House, Love was the one who wasn't charged.

Love drove her husband at the time, Marlo Thomas, and then-15-year-old Kenya Hall to the restaurant at 3131 N. Rainbow Blvd. where Thomas killed two employees while Hall held a gun on the manager. Thomas had recently been fired from the restaurant. Thomas stabbed Matthew Gianakis, 21, in the heart and stabbed Carl Dixon, 23, multiple times. Gianakis died in surgery at University Medical Center a few hours after he was stabbed, and Dixon was found dead in a Lone Star bathroom stall.

Hall, Thomas and Love were arrested 310 miles northwest of Las Vegas near Hawthorne in Love's car. She was driving when the trio were pulled over.

Both Hall and Thomas were charged with murder in the 1996 incident and eventually convicted, but Love was not charged in the case. Thomas was given the death sentence and his case currently is on appeal.

District Attorney Stewart Bell said there was insufficient evidence to show that Love knew the purpose of the trip to the Lone Star.

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