Las Vegas Sun

May 4, 2024

He dead babe’: Suspect sent message from shooting victim’s phone, police say

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Delon Holston

Soon after gunfire erupted in a car — leaving three people with gunshot wounds to their heads last month, two fatally — a woman waiting to meet one of the victims received a cryptic message from his phone, apparently now in the hands of the shooter: “I got killed, he dead babe.”

Then came a phone call from the victim’s Facebook account in which an unknown male voice told the woman that her ex-boyfriend was shot only because he was in the same car as another one of the victims, who he said had set him up to rob him, according to arrest warrant affidavits.

Besides providing the location of the shooting, the man told the woman that the incident was “going to be all over the news,” police said.

The woman’s ex-boyfriend — the only victim who survived the shooting — suffered a traumatic wound to the head that left bullet and bone fragments in his skull that could “result in further complications,” police said.

Tory Barnett, a 31-year-old woman, and Jason Harvey, 36, died at the scene from several gunshot wounds to the head, police said.

Delon Holston, 29, was later identified as the suspect and arrested on June 17 in Inglewood, Calif., four days after the shooting, police said. He was wanted on two counts of murder with a deadly weapon and one count each of attempted murder and robbery with a deadly weapon.

Holston, who was partly linked to the slayings by prescription drug documents left in the car where the shooting occurred, is awaiting extradition to Clark County.

Officers were dispatched about 3:30 a.m. to an alley of an apartment complex in the 4100 block of Silver Dollar Avenue, near Pennwood Avenue and Arville Street, police said. There they found a rental car that had rolled into a utility pole after the gunshots.

In the car were the driver, Barnett, and her two passengers, Harvey and the surviving man, police said. Holston allegedly fired at least five rounds while he sat in the back.

Barnett and Harvey died at the scene.

Information on a definite motive for the shooting hasn’t been released, police said. No weapons were found in the car.

Going off the prescription documents, detectives linked Holston to a police-documented Henderson incident hours prior to the shooting in which he allegedly commandeered a car from a woman with whom he shares children. A second woman witnessed the attack.

The women identified Holston off surveillance images from the homicides scene, in which the shooter was seen walking from the car, police said.

The suspect also matched security images from when Holston sought medical treatment at a hospital, police said. Two witnesses at the scene weren’t able to connect Holston with a previous photo of him they were showed by detectives.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Holston has spoken to Metro detectives.