LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A maintenance worker called to a welfare check is believe to be among the three people found dead in an apparent triple homicide in the west valley on Tuesday morning.
That's according to Lt. Jason Johansson with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide Section.
In a media briefing on Tuesday afternoon, Johansson shared new information about the ongoing investigation at the apartment complex in the 9100 block of West Flamingo Avenue, near Fort Apache Road.
Inside the apartment, officers located the bodies of three people: two men in their 40s and a woman in her 80s, according to police.
One person was arrested in connection with the deaths and is believed to have attacked a second maintenance worker who was injured at the scene, Johansson explained.
That maintenance worker, described as a 50-year-old Hispanic male, was among the first to call 911 at approximately 9:03 a.m. and report he'd been stabbed.
Officers arriving at the scene spoke to the worker, who told officers the person who'd stabbed him was in a courtyard behind the apartment leasing office. Officers "made contact with him and he was taken into custody without incident," Johansson explained.
Officers described the suspected attacker as a white male in his 30s. At the time of his arrest, Johansson noted he was carrying a "large mace or sledgehammer-type instrument."
The injured maintenance worker told police he and another worker were asked to perform a welfare check at an apartment in the complex that morning. As they entered the apartment, they "realized the apartment was disheveled and it appeared that there was already a crime scene in the apartment," Johansson said.
The suspect was still in the apartment at that time and "immediately confronted them and began attacking them," Johansson said.
The surviving maintenance worker was attacked at the door and took off running back to the leasing office, where 911 was called. He was later transported to University Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
"The other maintenance worker, we believe, is still inside the apartment right now, deceased," Johansson said.
The bodies of two other victims, a man and a woman, were located in a bedroom of the apartment, according to police.
"We do not know their relation to the suspect, however we do believe they are related and that they lived together in the apartment," Johansson said.
As of this report, police said the main focus of their investigation is to confirm the identities of the people found dead in the apartment "and to confirm what caused this to occur."
"Specifically, the other male and female in the apartment deceased, when did that happen," Johansson said. "We don't know that at this time."
Police are also working with apartment management to determine what led them to request a welfare check at the apartment, Johansson added.
