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March 28, 2024

Police: Love triangle likely cause of murder-suicide near downtown Las Vegas

Murder-suicide, 1/20/18

Ricardo Torres-Cortez

Metro Police investigate after two men died and a woman was wounded in a murder-suicide that stemmed from a love triangle at the Ethel Pearson Park on Washington Avenue and E Street Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018.

Updated Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018 | 7:32 p.m.

Two men are dead and a woman was wounded at a park near downtown this morning in a murder-suicide shooting that may have stemmed from a love triangle, according to Metro Police.

The violent act broke out about 7:30 a.m. when one of the men, 41-year-old Jorge Rodriguez, encountered his wife sitting inside her red pickup truck with another man at the Ethel Pearson Park on E Street and Washington Avenue, Lt. Dan McGrath said.

When Rodriguez pulled up in his car, the second man got out of the truck, prompting the husband to crash his sedan into the truck’s driver’s side, McGrath said.

Rodriguez then got out of the car and shot the man multiple times, fatally wounding him before turning the gun on the mother of his children, and then on himself, McGrath said. The male victim’s car was parked right behind the truck.

Both men died at the scene and the woman was rushed to University Medical Center with wounds in her legs, McGrath said. She was cooperating with police and was expected to recover.

Investigators believe Rodriguez followed his wife to the park, McGrath.

Detectives and staff from the Clark County Coroner’s Office remained at the scene around 11 a.m.

Moments later, two concerned-looking women pulled up to the scene. When they spoke to an investigator a couple of minutes later, they screamed and cried inconsolably.

“He’s dead,” one of the women told someone on the phone as she held her chest.