Two Dead, Six Wounded, as Showgirls Attacked Outside Wynn Casino

07:28
13 Oct

Two people were killed and half a dozen injured when a knife-wielding man went on a stabbing rampage close to the Wynn Casino on the Las Vegas Strip...

That Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) tweet was soon updated to include another victim of the morning violence in an area frequented by tourists.

Reports of multiple stabbings came in at 11:42am on October 6th and LVMPD officers were quickly on the scene at the 3100 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard, arresting a suspect later named as 32-year-old Yonio Barrios.

Eye-witnesses reported that the suspect had first attacked two showgirls, chasing them and then stabbing them when they fell outside the Wynn casino.

Dewaun Turner, 47, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he witnessed five of the stabbings while returning home from his job at The District at Resorts World, a hotel and casino close to the crime scenes.

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Eyewitness describes horror

Turner said he saw two women, in red dresses and high heels, shouting and screaming for help as they fled from the suspect. He said one of the women slipped near an escalator and fell in front of the Wynn Las Vegas.

She was stabbed by Barrios, who then attacked the second woman, before running off toward the Palazzo, where Turner, who called 911, says the suspect stabbed another man, followed by two more women.

One victim is said to have screamed that he had been stabbed, taking off his t-shirt to staunch the blood, before “sitting down at the bottom of an escalator, shaking”. First responders took 10 minutes to arrive and begin treatment according to the witness.

“Ten or 15 steps ahead and I would’ve been one of the people stabbed,” Turner said. He didn’t see the further three stabbings, but believes the male victim died at the scene.

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Multiple Attack Locations

James LaRochelle, a senior Las Vegas police official, told reporters that the suspect initially stabbed two people, moved to a second location farther south and stabbed five more people, then stabbed an eighth victim at a nearby third location.

“The initial stabbing occurs on the sidewalk area [and] appears unprovoked,” LaRochelle said at a news conference. “There is no altercation beforehand.”

It was later reported that two people had died, 47-year-old Brent Allan Hallett, and 30-year-old Maris Mareen Digiovanni, both of Las Vegas, one at the scene and one later in hospital. A further six people are currently in hospital, with three of those in critical condition.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said his officers “quickly identified the suspect” and arrested him “without further incident.”

“This was an isolated incident,” added LaRochelle. “All evidence indicates Barrios acted alone and there are no outstanding suspects at this time.”

“We want to extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and to the victims themselves,” LaRochelle said. “This is clearly a very tragic and hard to understand, hard to comprehend murder investigation that deeply impacts our community.”

“It’s very difficult in one-off events such as this to prevent it from happening without any intelligence that it may occur,” Lombardo said.

Barrios has been booked into Clark County Detention Centre on two counts of murder with a deadly weapon and six counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon. The investigation is ongoing, police said.