The killer on the other side of vegas verdes

June 3, 1999

Early morning. Some time around five a.m. A neighborhood located about a mile or so from the Strip. A quiet neighborhood consisting of homes built largely during the 1960s and with Vegas Verdes Elementary School on one end and a shopping center on the other anchoring either side of the block bordered by Valley View, Sahara, Arville, and Oakey.

The date is June 3, 1999. And walking through the serene early morning stillness is a young man in his early twenties draped in a camouflage shirt and sporting black pants and boots. In his hands is a pump-action shotgun loaded to maximum capacity. Additional shells rubbed against each other within the confines of his pocket, a total of nineteen shotgun shells in all.

This man’s name is Zane Floyd. And this late spring morning, he planned to use those nineteen shotgun shells on the first nineteen people he encountered. As a resident of this neighborhood, he knew exactly where his first stop would be.

Chaos and Alcohol

Zane Floyd was born in Colorado, where he had a troubled childhood. He was abandoned by his biological father, and he suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome due to his mother’s habitual alcohol abuse during pregnancy. Floyd was prescribed a variety of medications, including Ritalin and antidepressants throughout his elementary and middle school years. Floyd moved frequently since his stepfather was in the military, and he relocated with his family to Las Vegas when he was about twelve years old. The Floyd family first lived in the Woodside Village apartments before moving into a house on West Oakey. 

Though the family settled in southern Nevada, Floyd’s home life remained anything but settled. He and his mother were the frequent targets of physical abuse by Floyd’s stepfather, which even resulted in at least one arrest. Floyd turned to alcohol to numb himself as he entered his teen years. This began a path of alcohol leading to the erosion of Zane Floyd the easygoing kid into Zane Floyd the increasingly angry and frustrated man.

Floyd served in the U.S. Marines, serving in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and in South Carolina. Though Floyd received commendations, alcohol’s pull continued to stalk him throughout his brief military career. Floyd was disciplined for drinking on duty while in Cuba, and he was charged with a DUI while stationed in South Carolina. When reenlistment time came, Floyd was told that he was no longer welcome in the Marines and received an honorable discharge as a lance corporal in 1998. 

Floyd became listless after leaving the military, obtaining work as an armored car security guard and taking up residence in an apartment with friends that fueled his substance abuse habit. Now added to heavy drinking was the regular use of methamphetamine for Zane Floyd. Soon came habitual sleepless nights. And of course, plenty of partying.

Chaos ruled Zane Floyd’s life by mid-1999. He lost his job as a security guard. All he could find in lieu of this was a part-time gig as a bouncer for a local bar. Then, a cousin with whom he was extremely close was killed by a drunk driver. Then the kicker – he was evicted from his apartment and found himself living back with his parents in a guest house at their home off of Oakey Boulevard and Los Altos Street.  He allowed himself to believe the hopelessness he felt – here he was in his early twenties without a purpose other than flittering from job to job and hanging out at the bars and strip clubs dotting Las Vegas. He did little to change his circumstances. But the one thing Floyd persisted with was his habit of overconsuming alcohol.

A brutal assault on the eve of a massacre

Frustrated with his ability to only hold down short-term work, Floyd’s anger grew.  That anger evolved into violence on the night of June 2, 1999. 

After picking up his final check from his former employer, Floyd met up with his girlfriend and some other friends at Sneakers Bar where he worked as a bouncer.  Floyd and his girlfriend then made their way to Olympic Gardens.  Floyd hit the booze hard at the strip club, part of an effort to numb the boiling anger he was consumed with once he realized he had been shorted on his final paycheck. He drank more and more, but not so much that he was unable to drive himself and his girlfriend to the Rio Hotel where the duo saw the band Boogie Knights.  At some point, Floyd’s girlfriend got bored of his ignoring her while he gambled and drank, and she left her inebriated partner.

Floyd drank more and more and proceeded to gamble away most of that last short paycheck. He stumbled out of the Rio and into the backseat of a cab. Before long, he was back at his parents’ home where he proceeded to consume still more booze while listening to Korn. 

Anyone that grew up in Las Vegas in the pre-Internet age remembers the vast section of the local yellow pages dedicated to “Entertainment” featuring page after page of exotic dancer and escort advertisements.  Floyd called one of the many options – Love Bound Escort Services – and a woman identified by the agency as “Kayla” was sent over. The 20-year-old entertainer arrived at his parents’ home at around 3:30 a.m the morning of June 3, 1999.

Floyd rushed the woman inside and slammed the door behind them.  When she turned around, Floyd had a 12-gauge shotgun leveled at her.  With a look that stared right through her, Floyd then commanded “Kayla” to undress. When she balked, Floyd informed her that the weapon in his hands could put a hole in her the size of a fist.

He then placed handcuffs on her and sexually assaulted “Kayla.”

Floyd then told “Kayla” that he had nineteen shotgun shells, and he planned to kill the next nineteen people he saw.  She felt terror as Floyd lovingly caressed his shotgun and told her the firearm was “his baby.”

Floyd mused to “Kayla” about his next steps.  He said that if someone came knocking at the door, he would shoot her so that she wouldn’t have to witness his suicide.  Assuming that Floyd would take her life at the end of the ordeal, “Kayla” was shocked when Floyd told her to get out of his house.  Without giving Floyd an opportunity to reconsider, the young woman darted from the home and headed to a friend’s house.

A walk down las verdes street

Night still hung over the Vegas Valley as Floyd loaded his 12-gauge shotgun and considered ending his life right here in his small bedroom.  But Floyd didn’t choose suicide.  Instead, he donned pseudo-military apparel and covered himself in a bathrobe.  He tucked the shotgun underneath his robe and filled his spacious pockets with shotgun shells, left his parents’ house, and began the fifteen minute or so walk to the Albertsons grocery store at the shopping center on the northwest corner at Sahara and Valley View.

The one motive dominating Floyd’s mind at the moment was his desire to know what it was like to “shoot and kill someone.”  And to accomplish that end, Floyd wanted to find a place with a lot of people.

Floyd passed quiet houses where most people were still sleeping, along the border of Vegas Verdes Elementary School, past the low chainlink fence of the house at Las Verdes and La Pasada where two loud chow chow dogs roamed the yard, then he walked in front of the Happy Dayz daycare on Las Verdes Street that sat next to a parking lot pedestrians could cut through to enter the Albertsons shopping center.  He walked through a nearly empty parking lot, passing the closed Dairy Queen and Dead Poets used bookstore as he made his way toward the illuminated doors of the Albertsons. Approximately thirty employees and customers were in the store as the young man with a shaved head and shotgun underneath his robe steadily advanced.

Floyd wanted to go to the closest crowded place he could find to take as many human lives as he could.  But as his target came into view, Floyd asked himself, “Are you going to do this, or what?” 

He decided the answer was “Yes.”

Albertsons

Just about 5:15 a.m. Floyd entered the Albertsons and encountered 40-year-old Thomas Darnell pushing shopping carts just inside the entrance.  From a distance of about fifteen feet, Floyd fired into Darnell’s back. 

For the next several minutes, Floyd calmly made his way through the supermarket, firing at two employees near the intersection of aisles seven and fourteen, cutting down Dennis Sargent and Carlos “Chuck” Leos.  After murdering three employees, Floyd spotted another employee, Lucy Tarantino, and sprinted after her.  Floyd slipped and fell as he ran, but he ultimately recovered and cornered Tarantino in the west corner of the store.  He ignored Tarantino’s pleas for mercy and murdered the woman with a single shot.

21-year-old employee Zachary Emenegger was spotted by Floyd.  Emenegger ran for his life and found himself cornered in the sprawling produce section of the store.  The young employee dodged behind stands full of oranges, apples, and onions as Floyd hunted the last remaining person he could find in the store – about twenty people had successfully hidden from Floyd’s rampage in freezers and back rooms.  Finally cornering Emenegger, Floyd fired into the young man and left his motionless body on the linoleum floor.

With no potential victims remaining, Floyd walked to the front of the store where he encountered several Metro police cars that had sped to the scene.  Floyd ran back inside the store for a few seconds before reemerging with his shotgun held to his chin.

“Shoot me!” Floyd begged of the officers gathered around him with their weapons drawn.  After several minutes of tense negotiations, Floyd agreed to put down his weapon and be taken into custody.  Still reeking of alcohol, he was put in the back of a patrol car.  Before long, Floyd was in an interrogation room at the Clark County Detention Center speaking to a detective after waiving his right to remain silent.  Floyd’s blood alcohol level three hours after being arrested was .09.

The Trial

The District Attorney of Clark County, Stewart Bell, personally handled the prosecution of Zane Floyd for the murder of four innocent people on the morning of June third. At trial, Floyd’s public defenders presented experts that testified to Floyd being in a dissociative state at the time of the shootings.

The evidence was fairly indisputable, and the jury apparently gave little weight to the defense expert, finding Zane Floyd guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. This was not a surprise to the defense. They knew the real battle would be fought during the penalty phase of the State of Nevada’s case against Floyd.

Testimony from specialists, relatives, and friends were at the forefront of the defense’s presentation of mitigating factors that they argued should spare Zane Floyd from receiving a death sentence. There was heavy emphasis on his abusive childhood, his need for antidepressant prescriptions before he even entered high school, and on the respectable aspects of his military service.

But there was also testimony from the families of the four people that were robbed of their lives by Zane Floyd. The wife of Carlos Leos testified about her husband’s love of music and deejaying. Thomas Darnell’s mother testified about how her son would help people take out the trash at a nearby restaurant.

The jury determined that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones presented by the defense and sentenced Zane Floyd to death.

Twenty-five years have passed since that morning in June of 1999, and Zane Floyd is still alive in a Nevada prison cell. Lengthy legal battles have delayed his execution time after time, and he is effectively serving a life sentence.

Going Back to Albertsons

This story is a bit different than the others we have covered here since one of the creators of Mayhem in the Desert has some firsthand experience with this crime. Anthony Smith (me) grew up across the street from Vegas Verdes Elementary School – and on the other side of the school lived Zane Floyd on the day he made the walk with a shotgun in hand to the nearest supermarket.

One of the eeriest experiences of early adolescence was walking through the Alberton’s that had been my neighborhood grocery store for as long as I could remember for the first time after the massacre.  Floyd’s murderous actions had somehow transformed this familiar physical location into something else, something quite irretrievably dark. 

The aisles were organized the same, the floors were cleaned of dry blood and now appeared unchanged, and – except for the slain four – the faces of the same employees greeted me.  But walking through the produce section, I couldn’t help but to imagine Zachary Emenegger desperately dodging for cover to avoid Floyd’s shotgun blast, a sensation of an unsettling crawl of the skin.

And this time when I left the Albertsons after a purchase of next week’s groceries, there was no Thomas Darnell to walk with me and my grandparents out to the parking lot to load bag after bag into the trunk of a Lincoln that was missing an “L” in the logo and that Thomas accordingly always referenced as a top-of-the-line “incoln”.

During Zane Floyd’s murder trial, the District Attorney called the crime “the worst massacre in the history of Las Vegas.” Since the mass shooting at the Albertsons in a quiet Vegas neighborhood, mass shootings have become even more commonplace, with the deadliest in modern American history occurring on the Strip not that far from where Zane Floyd unleashed his uncategorized rage on an innocent community. 

Every one of these mass shootings brings up the memory of the rampage at the grocery store down the street and I wonder if it’s the same for others in close proximity to the multitude of mass shootings that plague the United States – when the breaking news alerts come, does it bring up memories of the school your kid went to; the office complex where your friend worked; the salon where you get your hair done; or the grocery store down the street.

To hear more about the Zane Floyd case, listen to the episode of Sin City Stories covering the topic at the link below.

We also want to acknowledge the excellent in-depth reporting by Sean Golonka of the Nevada Independent, which assisted in researching aspects of this article. Read the whole Nevada Independent article at the link below.