Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

3 indicted, including daughter, in kidnapping and slaying of 68-year-old woman

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Autumn Cole

Three suspects arrested in woman's death

KSNV coverage of a Las Vegas woman's death and the arrest of suspects, Aug. 2, 2011.

Three people, including the victim’s daughter, were indicted by a Clark County grand jury today in the strangling death of Katherine Cole, a 68-year-old Las Vegas woman found dead at her home in late July.

Autumn Cole, 44, the daughter, Joseph Perez, 44, and Lorenzo Cardenas-Sanchez, 37, were each indicted on murder, robbery and kidnapping charges in connection with Cole’s July 28 death.

Their arraignments will be at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 8 in district court. All three remain in custody at the Clark County Detention Center without bail.

Specifically, all three were each charged with conspiracy to commit murder, burglary, murder with the use of a deadly weapon on a victim 60 years of age or older, robbery with the use of a deadly weapon on a victim 60 years of age or older and grand larceny auto.

Cole and Perez were also each charged with first-degree kidnapping with the use of a deadly weapon on a victim 60 years of age or older and possession of credit or debit card without the cardholder’s consent. Cardenas-Sanchez was also charged with accessory to murder.

According to an arrest report, Perez, Autumn Cole’s boyfriend, said a man took Cole to her mother’s home in Las Vegas at 5 p.m. July 29. He said soon after she called him to come to the house.

The indictment says the mother was first detained by using bedding and a bathrobe sash twisted into ligatures, then was strangled with a twisted pillowcase.

When Perez arrived at the home, according to the police report, the daughter was trying to put her mother’s body in the trunk of her car. Perez said he persuaded Cole to leave the body in the garage, and then stepped on her. The two then stole her mother’s white Acura Integra, “pushed her head out of the way” and drove off, the report said.

Perez told police he was the person who used Cole’s debit and credit cards at an ATM and a Kmart. After carrying out a search warrant, police found the cards in the car Cardenas-Sanchez was driving.

Cardenas-Sanchez told police he took not only Cole but Perez to Katherine Cole’s home on July 29.

He said both got out of the car, but that Autumn Cole came back to the car and Perez remained in the house. He took Cole back to her house and left. He said he later met up with Cole and followed her in her mother’s car to Arizona Charlie’s, where they left the car.

He and Perez then went to an Arco AM-PM, Kmart, the ATM and El Super Market using Cole’s debit cards to make purchases, the report said. Police recovered the Acura in the casino parking lot, and casino surveillance video shows a person leaving the car and exiting in a red van.

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