New trial set for men charged in 9-year-old girl’s shooting death

By Dave Toplikar

Thursday, May 17, 2012 | 11:45 a.m.

Two men who just went through a nearly month-long murder trial in the 2009 alleged gang-related death of a 9-year-old North Las Vegas girl — which resulted in a hung jury earlier this month — will have to wait until June 3, 2013, for their new trial.

Kenneth Reid Jr., 23, and Marcus Larry, 30, were in court Thursday morning to find out what happens next in their case, which fell apart on May 7.

On that date, a Clark County jury told District Judge James Bixler that the 12 members of their panel couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict after deliberating for four days. Bixler declared a mistrial.

Reid and Larry still both face murder charges and the death penalty in the shooting death of Savannah Bullins, who was killed June 12, 2009, in a hail of bullets fired at her family’s Las Vegas apartment near Cheyenne Avenue and Interstate 15.

Prosecutors told the jury that Reid and Marcus were the “shot-callers” of a gang, the 004 Hoodsmen Bloods, that controlled the neighborhood.

Prosecutors claimed Reid and Larry were targeting the girl’s father, Willie Bullins, who told police he was a former member of the rival Crips gang and had sold marijuana out of his home.

Prosecutors said the shooting was part of the 004 Hoodsmen Blood gang’s effort to enforce their control of the neighborhood. They charged that Reid and Larry had already arranged a public fist fight between one of their gang members and a Crips gang member in the apartment complex earlier that evening, just before the shooting.

Defense attorneys argued that prosecutors had no solid evidence against either Reid or Larry. The defense attorneys have said the case against the defendants relies on innuendo and gossip and trying to create a distraction with the theory that the shooting was motivated by a battle between rival gangs.

After jurors were dismissed, they told attorneys that they had trouble trying to believe and sort out the testimony of the witnesses that prosecutors put on the stand.

During Thursday morning’s hearing, Bixler asked prosecutors, in light of the hung jury, if they would be amending any of the charges.

“Are we going to do this all over again?” Bixler asked.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo told the judge the state would move forward with the same charges, noting that 10 of the 12 jurors in the previous trial had reached a guilty verdict on the murder charge.

Bixler attempted to try to schedule the new trial beginning next March. But prosecutors said they had other cases that were already scheduled during that time.

Bixler, prosecutors and the defense attorneys went back and forth for several minutes to try to block out a five-week time period for the trial at an earlier date but couldn’t come up with one that would meet all of their schedules.

“Your honor, this is becoming sentencing by continuance,” said Susan Burke, Reid’s attorney, obviously frustrated by the delay.

Reid has been in jail since Sept. 24, 2009, and Marcus has been in jail since Oct. 22, 2009. Bail for each of them has been set at $720,000.

After DiGiacomo said the earliest time he had available was in June 2013 , Bixler told the attorneys the trial would begin June 3, 2013.

Reid and Larry are each charged with murder with the use of a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit murder in Savannah Bullins’ death.

They are also charged in connection with endangering the girl’s father, his wife, and five other children who were in the apartment at the time of the shooting: seven counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon, five counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of discharging a firearm into a structure. Each charge carries a gang enhancement that could extend any sentence, if there is a conviction.