The woman accused of deliberately driving onto a packed sidewalk along the famed Las Vegas Strip told police she was stressed out by security guards chasing her from parking lots in which she had been trying to sleep, a police report indicates.
Lakeisha Holloway, 24, will be charged with murder with a deadly weapon and other charges related to the incident Sunday evening that left one person dead and dozens injured. District Attorney Steven Wolfson added that it was too early to determine whether the death penalty could or would be sought.
"The videos obviously show intention," Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said at a Monday press conference. But he reiterated that there was no indication the case involved terrorism.
Lombardo put the number of injured at 35 and said three people remained in critical condition. The Clark County Coroner's Office identified the person killed as Jessica Valenzuela, 32, of Buckeye, Ariz.
Holloway lived in Oregon and had been in Las Vegas for about a week, apparently living in her 1996 Oldsmobile sedan and parking it at garages throughout the city, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said. After her arrest, Holloway "described a stressful period today where she was trying to rest/sleep inside her vehicle with her daughter but kept getting run off by security of the properties she stopped at," according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press.
"She ended up on the Strip, 'a place she did not want to be,'" the report quotes her as saying. "She would not explain why she drove onto the sidewalk but remembered a body bouncing off her windshield, breaking it."
Investigators said Holloway had run out of money and that she and her daughter had been living in the car. Police believe she was headed to Dallas to find her daughter's father after they had a falling out.
The tragedy unfolded on Las Vegas Boulevard, steps away from the Planet Hollywood resort where the 2015 Miss Universe pageant was crowning a winner before a live audience and TV audiences around the world. Lombardo said video from bystanders and businesses shows the car roaring onto the sidewalk at least twice, smashing into panicked pedestrians. Some fought back, jumping on the car and pounding on it in an effort to make her stop, Lombardo said.
She finally drove the 1996 Oldsmobile around the corner and parked it at a hotel before speaking with the valet. A 3-year-old toddler in the back seat, apparently her child, was in good condition under the care of child services, Lombardo said.
Blood tests were pending. Lombardo said Holloway did not appear to be drunk when she talked with officers, but a drug expert said she appeared to be under the influence of a stimulant.
On Monday, Holloway was under an around-the-clock suicide watch at the Clark County jail, deputy public defender Scott Coffee told The Associated Press.
Holloway’s cousin, LaShay Hardaway, told the Los Angeles Times that Holloway was a hardworking fashion designer who doesn't suffer from any mental health issues as far as she knows.
She said Holloway had gone to Las Vegas “to go and check out the economy, and some other things.” She also said Holloway “wasn’t homeless, she lived with my mom.”
Hardaway said her cousin "makes a pretty good living." She said it was her understanding that Holloway had a hotel room in Las Vegas, contrary to officials’ remarks that she was living out of her car.
She said Holloway is a former fashion model who attended Portland Community College and had created her own fashion line. Oregon business records showed that she had started a women's clothing business in April called "Modeltype," the Times reported.
Antonio Nassar told the Las Vegas Sun he had just walked out of Planet Hollywood when he saw the car roar onto the sidewalk, slamming into stunned pedestrians. It briefly dragged a young boy, he said. The sound of the car hitting people was like "watermelons falling on the sidewalk," Nassar said.
"It was chaotic," Nassar told the Sun. "I was running down the street saying, 'Move! Move! Get out of the way!'"
Tourist Justin Cochrane said he and two other people had just sat down for dinner when the car began careening onto the sidewalk.
"It was mayhem and it was very intentional," Cochran told CNN. "People were flying. It was a sound I will never forget. It (the car) wasn't hitting cars, it was hitting people."
The case is not unprecedented. Ten years ago, the driver of a stolen car deliberately plowed into pedestrians on the Strip, killing three people and injuring a dozen others. Stephen Ressa, of Rialto, Calif., pleaded guilty but mentally ill and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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