Friday, Oct. 1, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.
In a rapid-fire and businesslike but cordial manner, tourist Larry Joyce told a Metro Police 911 dispatcher Tuesday that "it was a (expletive) accident and it just spiraled out of control."
He said he was going to kill himself when he got off the phone, and urged dispatcher Aaron Isom to send authorities quickly to Treasure Island, where they would find his 27-year-old girlfriend, Rebecca Roux, dead on the floor of their room.
"Please take care of her, OK? Please get her back to her family," Joyce said desperately.
Isom tried to talk him out of committing suicide. Joyce cut him off.
"I've got to go. I thank you, and trust me," he said emphatically, "there's definitely nothing you can do."
Metro Police on Thursday released the recording of the riveting 3 minute, 42 second call that Joyce made to 911 early Tuesday before leaping off Hoover Dam to his death.
Roux, a loan officer from Sanford, Maine, was found bludgeoned, strangled and stabbed to death in the hotel room. She and Joyce, 35, of Laconia, N.H., had been dating for a tumultuous five months.
When Isom answers about 12:15 a.m. Tuesday, Joyce tells him to start typing. He spells his name, then says: "I'm going to give you directions to (a body) then I'm going to kill myself."
In an apparent attempt to prove that he's not joking, he tells Isom to check his criminal record, saying he spent four years in prison in New Hampshire and quickly listed his convictions: rape, kidnapping, assault and weapons charges.
He told him to send authorities to the 29th floor of the Treasure Island, to a room booked in his name.
"There's a body on the floor there," he said. "Like I said, it was a(n) (expletive) accident and it just spiraled out of control."
Joyce gave Roux's Social Security number and driver's license number so police will be able to identify her, but that part of the 911 recording was redacted before it was released.
Isom tried to get Joyce to reveal where he was, but he refused, saying only he was in a public place and no one was in danger. He said: "My, my, my, my, my death will become very clear to you in a few minutes."
He repeatedly told Isom to get police to the hotel room.
"Lawrence, we're definitely gonna go there and check on it but we want to make sure you're OK," Isom said. Joyce refused his help.
Joyce said: "Last night something happened to me at the bar. I had four drinks. I started hallucinating, OK? Security came up and I thought they were FBI. I was cowering in the corner."
He said he wondered if some drug was slipped into his drink. He said "this" happened between him and Roux Monday afternoon, apparently referring to her murder.
Joyce told Isom that he had a note with phone numbers for authorities to call after he was dead. He apologized, adding, "I don't want you to ever think you couldn't do (could not have done) any more than you did."
Isom persisted, calmly saying he wanted to talk to him before he did anything. He tried to get him to stay on the phone longer and tell him where he was, but Joyce wasn't biting.
He sighed deeply and said: "I can't. Man, I tell you what, you're good. I have to go. Thank you."
Then Joyce hung up.
A short time later a Hoover Dam police officer spotted Joyce walking on the ledge of the dam. After a standoff with police, he jumped.
Capt. Mark Medina, head of Metro's communications bureau, said being on the receiving end of a phone call like that is no different from the feeling a police officer experiences when someone confesses to a crime.
"It's raises every hair follicle you have on your body," he said. "You have to be a very good listener and make sure you get all of the information."
Medina praised Isom for the professional way he handled the call, adding that Isom is a novice call-taker -- he started in January.
"He did a great job. That's what we're shooting for," Medina said.
Isom could not be reached for comment.
Joyce's suicide is unusual because tourists account for just 10 percent of suicides in Las Vegas, according to Matt Wray, assistant sociology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Maybe Roux's death really was an accident, Wray said, but Joyce seems to believe it will never be seen that way, given Joyce's criminal record. Faced with what he believes are his two options -- prison or suicide -- Joyce chooses the one that will give him the most control. Wray said.
Joyce's 25-year-old brother, Jeff, said Thursday that he believed Larry Joyce had a seasonal depression -- he would feel down when the weather turned cold and the days got shorter.
He came to Las Vegas to be in the warmth and sun when the temperature began to drop in New Hampshire, Jeff Joyce said. He had a friend here and stayed with him.
Joyce, who worked as a loan officer like Roux, got to Las Vegas Sept. 13. He hoped the weather would ease his depression and he wanted "to get away from Rebecca because they weren't getting along," Jeff Joyce said. "He was down in the dumps."
Before leaving New Hampshire, he went to a hospital and said he was having suicidal thoughts, his brother said. He was told it would be a couple of weeks before he could see a doctor.
Joyce knew he needed help right away, Jeff Joyce said, so he went to another hospital. He was given some Prozac, but no one was available to counsel him, Jeff Joyce said.
On Sept. 20 Roux came to Las Vegas to see him. She told some people she was going out of state to tend to a family emergency and she told others the truth. Those who knew she was coming to Las Vegas tried to talk her out of going.
Jeff Joyce said she left a note that "said to her family, goodbye, she was going to Vegas to see Larry."
The purpose of her trip was to figure out if they were going to stay together or if they were going to split up, Jeff Roux said.
He described his brother as "loving, caring and giving ... This is completely out of Larry's character."
Although Joyce told Isom he spent four years in prison, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Corrections said he received a three- to six-year sentence in 1990 and was released in 1992. The charges were aggravated felonious sexual assault and criminal threatening.
Joyce was required to register periodically with law enforcement as a sex offender. He last registered in February.
Jeff Joyce said he blamed the New Hampshire hospitals who couldn't offer him much help when he asked for it.
"Now two families are dealing with a tragic loss," he said.
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