METRO POLICE
Slobodan Miljus
Tuesday, May 21, 2019 | 6:25 p.m.
Before he could open up about his wife’s slaying Friday, a suspect told detectives that he needed to puff on a cigarette.
“She wanted it, she got it, I killed her,” Slobodan Miljus said — a preview to Metro Police detectives on what they would uncover if they allowed the suspect a smoke.
Zvjezdana Bencun, 31, was bludgeoned with an aluminum baseball bat Friday in the 9500 block of West Sahara Avenue, police said. She died at University Medical Center where she was taken with a faint pulse. After her teenage son arrived from school, he found her unconscious and dialed 911 about 4:30 p.m.
After smoking two cigarettes — and now inside a Metro interview room — Miljus was reminded that the tobacco wasn’t an exchange for anything; that he still had a right to remain silent, according to his arrest report.
But he waived that right.
Soon, Miljus, 37, was narrating how he swung an orange aluminum bat to his wife of 17 years, leaving their two boys without a mother, police said. He spoke about a rocky marriage, how he felt she was cheating and that he’d reached a “boiling point.”
Miljus outlined Friday morning, when the kids had left for school and their mother had pushed him away when he tried to hug her one last time, police said. He then left for the store to shop for a bat, duct tape and knives he intended to use for a murder-suicide, police said.
On his drive back home, Miljus bought vodka and sipped on a mixed drink, police said. The previous day, he said, he’d been on an hours-long phone call with his brother, who tried to walk him off the edge, police said. A futile attempt.
When he got home, his wife was asleep in the bedroom, so he mixed two more vodka drinks, police said. Now he was ready to act, gripping the killing tool with both hands as he entered the room, Miljus told police.
Miljus swung the bat and his victim didn’t speak, he said. But he did.
“He told her she brought this on as he hit her,” according to his arrest report.
There would be no murder-suicide.
After the victim’s son called 911 from a nearby gas station, officers made their way into the apartment and found Miljus sitting in the bed next to his dying wife, police said.
“Slobodan said he covered his wife with a blanket because he didn’t want to look at her as she lay on the bed,” according to the report.
Miljus sat in the interview room as he told detectives that he’d called his brother-in-law to say what had happened. The victim’s blood had “caked” on his hands and had stained his T-shirt.
Miljus is being held without bond at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of murder, jail logs show. He’s next due in court on June 6.
