The Luxor Bombing
Local news outlets in Las Vegas extensively covered a 2007 bombing at the Luxor hotel and casino on the Strip, including initial concerns over the bombing being related to terrorism and the prosecution of the two men responsible for the crime. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ/KLAS)
A Bombing on the strip
It was the early morning on May 7, 2007 – just after 4:00 a.m. – and 27-year-old Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio had just clocked out from his job as a vendor at Nathan’s Famous hot dogs in the food court of the Egyptian-themed pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Accompanying him was his new girlfriend, Caren Chali, who also worked at the Luxor.
The couple made their way to the top of the two-story parking garage behind the Luxor where Dorantes Antonio had parked his car. The young hot dog stand vendor noticed a coffee cup on top of his vehicle. Dorantes Antonio lifted the 24-ounce 7-11 Styrofoam coffee cup from the roof.
An explosion ripped through the night air.
Dorantes Antonio didn’t know – and would have no reason to have suspected – that within the coffee cup was a motion-activated pipe bomb. The explosive device mortally wounded Dorantes Antonio and sent shrapnel throughout the top floor of the garage, the jagged metal piercing other nearby vehicles.
Miraculously, Chali was uninjured by the bomb despite being only feet from the blast.
This was only a few years after 9/11, and national news media immediately speculated that the bombing was the result of a terrorist attack. But within hours, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detectives determined that the murder of Dorantes Antonio was not the result of an international terrorist cell but instead stemmed from what local news media dubbed a “jilted lover” seeking revenge.
Police determined that the bomb planted in the Luxor parking garage had been the work of Omar Rueda-Denvers, Caren Chali’s ex-boyfriend and father of her daughter. Rueda-Denvers sought the assistance of his friend, Porfirio Duarte-Herrera – who allegedly had expert bomb-making skills and was believed responsible for a bombing at an area Home Depot – in seeking revenge against his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
Rueda-Denvers had allegedly become obsessed with Chali after the couple’s breakup, with Rueda-Denvers stalking Chali for several months. On the night of the bombing, Rueda-Denvers and Duarte-Herrera waited at a gas station not far from the Luxor to listen for the blast.
A five-day trial resulted in the convictions of both Rueda-Denvers and Duarte-Herrera. Both men were sentenced to life in prison. Duarte-Herrera made headlines again in 2022 when he briefly escaped from a Nevada prison before being recaptured. He was later transferred to a maximum-security facility in Ely, Nevada.