The courtroom was quiet as a mouse on Friday as a police officer remembered a bloody scene.
"Once I initially walked around to try to render aid to him, I realized that his neck was pretty much completely severed off," the officer testifies.
34-year-old Maria Hernandez and 22-year-old Hector Gutierrez appeared before a judge on Friday in a preliminary hearing.
Both face murders charges after the death of Hernandez’s 43-year-old husband, Enrique.
The incident happened on May 25. Maria called police claiming a man killed her husband and stole their car near Eldora and Buffalo.
When they arrived to the scene, police found Maria alive and frantic. Her husband was lying in a blood bath with multiple stab wounds.
"There were extreme injuries and she had nothing," said one detective on the witness stand.
In the hearing on Friday, detectives revealed Maria's initial claim that she was with her husband and Hector at a bar.
When they left, they dropped Hector off at home and kept driving, but their car broke down.
When they got out to fix the problem, a man ran up and stabbed Enrique to death. He also stole the car.
Moments later her story changed, after police told her that her brother was a University Medical Center with a knife wound and that police were on the way to question him.
"She told me that her brother had been in the back seat,” the detective said. “That's when they pulled over, her brother got out of the vehicle and then attacked her husband."
Maria and her brother were arrested, accused of planning the murder and carrying it out. Maria and the victim are not from Las Vegas.
She told detectives they were visiting to celebrate a birthday.
She tells detectives her husband was abusive, and that she wanted her brother to carry out the attack because he hadn't been in trouble before.
The case will proceed in district court. Both suspects will be arraigned October 13.
