LAS VEGAS (AP) — A jury has found a man guilty of breaking into a room at a Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino and robbing and killing two Vietnamese tour leaders in June 2018.
Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter stood with his lawyers, shaking his head and glancing several times at jurors while the unanimous verdicts were read Tuesday in Clark County District Court, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Trotter, 37, faces a possible death sentence or life in prison following his convictions on charges of murder, burglary and robbery with a weapon. He was convicted in the stabbing deaths of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen at the Circus Circus hotel.
The same jury began hearing testimony and evidence Tuesday in the penalty phase of his trial.
Jurors deliberated about three hours after hearing some two weeks of evidence and testimony, the Review-Journal reported.
They learned that Nghia, 38, owned a tour business with her husband in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Nguyen, 30, was Nghia's employee. Their bodies were found on June 1, 2018, after they did not show up for a tour group trip. Police said hotel employees later determined the door lock on their room didn’t work properly.
Trotter was identified as a suspect in the killings before he and his girlfriend, Itaska Dean, were arrested about a week later, following a police chase in Chino, California.
Trotter was serving five years’ probation at the time after pleading guilty to felony resisting a police officer with a weapon, authorities said. He has been jailed in Las Vegas while awaiting trial, which was postponed several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic and pretrial litigation.
Dean pleaded guilty in California to evading arrest. She was not charged with any crime in the slayings of Nghia and Nguyen, and testified during Trotter's trial.
Trotter testified last week that a friend who had given him stolen goods to resell in the past gave him items belonging to Nghia and Nguyen, the Review-Journal reported. But prosecutors showed video of Trotter in a hotel elevator with a backpack that police said included a purse, two wallets, a cellphone, jewelry, watches and Vietnamese cash.
Prosecutor Michelle Fleck cast Nghia and Nguyen as "completely innocent people” who did nothing to deserve being killed, the Review-Journal reported.
Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen argued that forensic evidence was lacking and Trotter’s DNA and fingerprints were not found in the hotel room, the newspaper said.
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