Published Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017 | 4:54 p.m.
Updated Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017 | 6:38 p.m.
Christine Sanchez
The state did not have enough evidence to successfully prosecute a woman accused in a 2014 North Las Vegas fatal shooting, so they dismissed the case earlier this year, according to Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson and her attorney.
Metro Police allege that Christine Rose Sanchez, 47 — whose previous murder case was dropped in June at the prosecution’s request – went on to fatally shoot three of her roommates — two men and a woman — in a southeast valley “crash house” on Friday afternoon.
Officers and medics responded about 1:30 p.m. to a dilapidated house in the 4300 block of Del Sol Drive, near Tropicana Avenue and Lamb Boulevard, and found the men’s bodies in a bedroom, and the body of Natasha Henry, 43, in another room.
Henry died from multiple gunshot wounds, the Clark County coroner’s office said Tuesday. The two male victims have yet to be publicly identified.
Police described the property on Del Sol Drive as a “problem house,” which had a history of Metro being dispatched about a dozen times within this last year, to include calls about property crime and domestic disturbances.
Without specifically commenting about this case, Metro spokesman Officer Aden OcampoGomez said that cops are limited with what they can do with addresses with multiple calls, especially if they’re not rentals and there are no victims identified.
Sanchez was taken into custody Friday night about 15 miles from the crime scene, and is being held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center on three counts of murder with a deadly weapon. A report further detailing her arrest was not immediately available this afternoon.
The latest arrest came about six months after the DA’s office voluntarily petitioned the court to dismiss the 2014 murder case, court records show.
In early October 2014, prosecutors decided to charge Sanchez in the murder of Bonnie Rice, a 52-year-old who was gunned down the previous month in her North Las Vegas apartment, Wolfson said in an email statement. Prosecutors had considered evidence and “presumptive forensic tests.”
North Las Vegas police at the time alleged Sanchez had pulled the trigger and had taken off with the victim’s car. Sanchez, an acquaintance of Rice, was arrested several days later.
According to her arrest report, witnesses told police that Rice had loaned her car to Sanchez, and had been trying to recover it in the days leading to her death.
A “close friend” of Rice’s told detectives that the victim had never seen her more “afraid or rattled” than she was about Sanchez, according to the report.
Sanchez had agreed to return the car by the day Rice was found shot and stabbed multiple times, another witness said, according to the report.
Witnesses at an apartment complex where Sanchez lived told police that around the time of the murder, she had dropped off some shoes at an apartment, returning to pick them up the following day, according to the report. The shoes were then found in the trash, according to one of the witnesses.
Following the arrest, blood tests “failed to link” Sanchez to the crime and she was released from jail “pending further investigation,” Wolfson said.
A witness came forward with new information pertinent to Rice’s death in February 2015, and Sanchez was indicted by a grand jury in July 2015, Wolfson said. However, in the two years following, authorities could not secure additional evidence to “prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“As such, consistent with our obligation, we chose to dismiss the case voluntarily in June 2017,” Wolfson said.
A couple of months before Rice’s death, a Christine Rose Sanchez was arrested on one count each of domestic battery and attempted murder with a deadly weapon, court records show. Those charges were dismissed the following month. An arrest report detailing that incident was not immediately available.
Attorney Robert Langford, who represented Sanchez in the 2014 case, said his client maintained her innocence in Rice’s death throughout the legal process.
Langford said that he’s expecting to represent Sanchez in the latest case, but as of this afternoon, did not have enough information to comment on her behalf.
On June 14 — the day the North Las Vegas murder case was dismissed — in a Facebook page that apparently belongs to Sanchez, she wrote: “Today was the best news ever,” before thanking a couple of people who supported her. “Now I can start my life over and hopefully for the best.”
About a week later, she took a different tone: “Just too (sic) let everyone who didn't know my case was dismissed I don't have too (sic) worry about a dam thing now I can go hard.”
The post continues: “So all u sorry (explicit) who had a lot to say about me cause u thought I was going away for along time u thought wrong I’ll see u in the streets (sic).”
Sanchez is scheduled for an arraignment hearing Wednesday morning, jail records show.
