Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Las Vegas man who fatally beat girlfriend with hammer, ‘I just cracked’

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Willie Bain

After admitting to fatally beating his long-term girlfriend with a hammer, a man cried to detectives and told them, “I couldn’t control myself. I just cracked,” according to a Metro Police arrest report.

Willie Bain, 42, brutally attacked his girlfriend of 11 years, Crystal Lynn Felipe, 42, at their Las Vegas home on Feb. 17, and then drove her to a Henderson casino where he summoned officers, police allege in the report.

Three children — at least one shared by the couple — were in the house about 10 p.m. in the 800 block of Patagonia Ridge Avenue, near Cactus Avenue and Maryland Parkway, when the sound of a garage door slamming was followed by that of a woman screaming, police said.

Bain’s head was bleeding when he came back in the house several minutes later, telling the kids to go upstairs, before he took off in the family’s SUV, one of the children told detectives. Soon after, Bain called the kids apologizing and telling them he and Felipe were “leaving to work on their relationship.”

In a phone call to Felipe’s sister, Bain said that they weren’t going to see them anymore. “She’s seeing someone, come get the kids,” before hanging up, according to the report.

The woman’s family and officers responded to the family’s house to find blood in the garage and their vehicle gone, police said.

Bain called 911 about 11:20 p.m. from the casino parking lot on Lake Mead Parkway, telling an operator that “there was an argument between me and my wife. I’m in a white Hyundai Santa Fe. I beat her in the head. I don’t know if she’s alive.”

Surveillance footage captured Bain parking and getting a seemingly unconscious Felipe out of the back of the SUV and laying her on a sidewalk, police said. Inside the vehicle, they found a bloody hammer.

Bain was apologetic to police, accusing Felipe of cheating and saying that “I can’t believe I did that. This isn’t like me. I couldn’t take it anymore. What have I done?”

Bain remains booked at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of murder. His next court appearance is March 22.

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