LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — An arrest report reveals insight into the panicked moments a son and daughter spent trying to help their mother as she was killed in a Las Vegas home on Monday.
Las Vegas police officers were alerted to the attack when the woman's son flagged down a patrol car on Sahara Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard at 12:24 a.m.
The resulting investigation would lead to the arrest of 62-year-old Alexander Marshall, who is accused of killing his wife, Ma-Del Sagrario Diaz-Torres.
Diaz-Torres was found on a couch upstairs in the home near Hacienda Avenue and Grand Canyon Drive. Officers noted she was unresponsive, with a "slight pulse" and "several sharp force injuries" to her chest.
Medical personnel called to the home attempted to save her life, but she succumbed to her injuries, officers stated in their report.
Diaz-Torres's daughter witnessed the attack on her mother, according to investigators. She told police her stepfather, Marshall, was "overly jealous of Ma-Del and her interaction with males."
The two were said to have argued over an incident while they were out at dinner a few nights earlier, when Marshall reportedly got upset with Diaz-Torres for speaking to a male server in Spanish.
Their disagreement came to a head on Monday night. Diaz-Torres's daughter told police she fell asleep and woke up to her mother screaming.
She told police she saw Marshall strangling her mother and tried to intervene, the report states, but said Marshall threatened to harm her next.
Diaz-Torres's daughter ran to the bathroom and tried to call her brother, then 911, but "due to the long wait time she hung up" and called her brother again, the report states.
As this unfolded, her mother "began screaming hysterically," she told police. As she ran out of the house to seek help, she told police she heard a "punching" sound and thought Marshall was punching the couch.
The daughter ran through her neighborhood looking for help when she saw a car approaching, realized it was her stepfather's, and ran in the other direction, she told police. Soon after, she was able to get in touch with her brother, who was on his way home and flagged down a patrol car to bring police to the house.
Marshall had left the scene in a maroon Nissan pickup truck, police stated. He was located in the area of Rainbow Boulevard and Badura Avenue and pursued by officers who tried to pull him over.
Police pursued Marshall's truck and were able to surround him on the 215 beltway near Eastern Avenue. A SWAT team was called when Marshall refused to exit the vehicle, police said previously.
Around 5:35 a.m., he was arrested and taken to Sunrise Hospital to be treated for self-inflicted injuries, police said. He was booked into jail in absentia for murder with a deadly weapon.
Investigators who interviewed Marshall wrote that he admitted to choking and stabbing his wife.
