Arrest of Budding Serial Killer Targeting Las Vegas Homeless
potential serial killer stopped
Last month Las Vegas police arrested a budding serial killer that had been preying upon the local homeless population.
Image of the University District area where a killer targeting homeless individuals operated during September of 2022, alongside security footage of the person believed responsible for the attacks. (Google Maps/LVMPD)
stabbing spree
During the early morning hours of September 14, 2022, Jodi Thompson DeVries was stabbed to death while she slept near the 3900 block of Algonquin Drive – not far from the UNLV campus.
A few days later, on September 20, 2022, 74-year-old Mary Susan Miller was found stabbed to death on the sidewalk near Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway.
The next afternoon, a woman pushing a man in a wheelchair near Desert Springs Hospital were accosted by a man wielding a knife. The assailant first stabbed the woman before turning his attention to the man in the wheelchair, delivering several blows from his blade before fleeing. Both victims were taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Christopher Martell, who lived not far from where a series of four stabbings occurred during September of 2022, was arrested on two charges of murder and two charges of attempted murder in relation to a series of attacks targeting homeless people. (LVMPD)
suspect caught
Police had put resources into the case after linking the murders of DeVries and Miller, and an arrest was made not long after the attack on the two people near Desert Springs Hospital. Police took 33-year-old Christopher Martell into custody on two charges of murder and two charges of attempted murder.
Martell lived in an apartment by himself on the 1600 block of Rochelle Avenue, not far from where he allegedly targeted his victims.The case grew more bizarre when police questioned Martell about the crimes, and the suspect responded by informing detectives that he “was an operator with the CIA and could not discuss what he did.”
Shane Schindler (Left), likely culprit of two bludgeoning deaths in downtown Las Vegas. Joshua Castellon (Right) convicted of murdering two homeless men in Las Vegas and attempting to kill two other people. Scene of Las Vegas unsheltered homeless people. (YouTube)
targeting those with the least
Unfortunately, Martell’s alleged crime spree would not be the first to target those with the least in the Las Vegas area.
In early 2017, Shane Schindler was arrested for allegedly using a hammer to murder two men experiencing homelessness near downtown Las Vegas. Police arrested Schindler as a suspect in the twin slayings after using a dummy posed as a man sleeping on the street to lure out the killer.
On January 29, 2018, Joshua Castellon shot a man standing outside of a convenience store in the small town of Logandale, approximately an hour outside Las Vegas. Over the next seven hours, two homeless men in Las Vegas were shot, with Brian Clegg succumbing to his wounds. A few days later, on February 3, 2018, Castellon parked on a quiet Vegas street, exited his vehicle, and fired two shots into James Lewis while he slept under a freeway overpass, killing the man instantly. Authorities were able to use surveillance footage of the Lewis slaying to identify Castellon through his vehicle.
“As I say every time a homeless person is murdered, the sidewalk or a soft patch of dirt is no place for a human being to take their last breath,” Las Vegas police captain Andrew Walsh commented after the hammer slayings.