In The Dark: Las Vegas Police keep death investigation details from family, public

“I didn’t get a phone call. I got a video from someone on Facebook,”  Stansbury told the Optic by phone. “That’s how I found out she was found. Not one phone call from the police.”

Stansbury said that she and other family members had been in regular contact with investigators at LVPD since Storey was first reported missing. Stansbury, who currently lives in Illinois, even traveled to Las Vegas in February to join a group of people who searched the city for Storey after she was reported missing in January.

During that search, Stansbury heard from several people who said Storey’s body was in the house on Romero Street, and Stansbury even met with LVPD investigators who took her to the home. She said investigators then attempted to convince her that Storey’s body couldn’t possibly be under the floor of the house.

“They said, ‘Look how short the floor is to the ground. There’s no way a body could fit under there.’ But you know, people can dig,” Stansbury said.

In fact, crime scene photos taken the day Storey’s body was located show a flat-head shovel propped against a wall inside the home, one of the few items in the otherwise empty house. Incident reports written by an enforcement service specialist who discovered Storey’s body also referenced the shovel. The ESS officer wrote, “We noticed evidence of a hole that was being dug as there were makings from a shovel.”

In late January, Lt. Matias Apodaca told the Optic LVPD had received reports that Storey might be with family in Albuquerque or Springer, but despite the constant interaction between the family and LVPD, Apodaca said, “We’ve reached out (to her family), but we’ve had no answer to those calls.”

This is something Stansbury vehemently denies.

“Immediately when I found out (she was missing), I was on top of it, and nine days later, we were having a search party. So it’s not like the family wasn’t involved with this from the beginning,” Stansbury said. “It’s like they were trying to make her seem even more like an outcast.”

 

Illusive answers

Code enforcement officers located Storey’s body on May 6, wrapped in a brown blanket and a blue tarp. It was secured by some type of wire, and a plastic bag was covering Storey’s head.

That day, the Optic contacted David Bibb, who was chief of police at the time, seeking details about the gruesome discovery. Bibb responded two days later and said the case was still “being worked as a missing person case,” and added that leads detectives had followed had not “panned out.”

When asked again about the body 17 days later, Bibb confirmed the remains found in the home on Romero Street were those of Shana Storey.

Bibb said her death was not being investigated as a homicide, and that investigators were still waiting for the results of an autopsy. The Optic requested further updates from Bibb in late June, but he did not respond.

In July, Mayor Louie Trujillo announced plans to replace Bibb, and on July 15, Las Vegas City Council approved Adrian Crespin as the city’s new police chief.

The Optic contacted Chief Crespin by email on Aug. 19 in an attempt to schedule an interview about Storey’s case. Crespin responded by writing, “We can set up a date sometime next week,” but he never responded to a request to schedule a specific time.

The Optic emailed Crespin on Aug. 25, again attempting to schedule a time to speak with him, and Crespin wrote, “I am trying to get settled in and getting up to speed on operations here at the department. I will have my secretary reach out to you next week and set up a date and time.”

The Optic asked to speak to someone else within the police department who could provide an update on Storey’s case, and Crespin wrote, “I will have a response for you tomorrow.”

Chief  Crespin never responded.

The lack of communication from LVPD is something Stansbury said she is very familiar with. Since Storey was reported missing, Stansbury said she’d been in regular contact with Lt. Apodaca, the initial investigator.

“I was constantly calling, and texting and emailing Apodaca,” Stansbury said. “He was really good about getting back to me, but then he just disappeared off the face of the Earth.”

A new detective, Investigator Antonio Salazar, soon took over the case, Stansbury said. She’d been in contact with him for a while, but said before long, he too stopped returning her calls, so she sent him a text message. Someone on the other end wrote back to say the phone no longer belonged to Salazar, but the unknown person promised to pass the message along to him.

Stansbury called LVPD and asked to speak with someone in charge of her sister’s case. She was transferred to a sergeant who indicated Salazar was still in charge, but the sergeant said Salazar was “on the street” and would call her back later. She asked the sergeant for an update on her sister’s case, but the man said he didn’t have any information.

When another family member called LVPD, Stansbury said they left a message, but didn’t receive a call back for two weeks. Stansbury said Salazar got back to her around then too, apologized, and said he was back on Storey’s case.

“I think he’s really trying, but I think they’re making it really hard for him because he’s a young detective,” Stansbury said. “I think he has good intentions, but I don’t think they’re giving him any resources, and I don’t really know what’s going on with anything.”

 

Turning to documents  

With few answers coming from LVPD, in May, the Optic filed a series of records requests under New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act.

The city and LVPD released 21 pages of documents pertaining to Storey’s case, including call sheet reports and officer incident reports. Also included were evidence tag reports, which were largely unreadable due to poor photocopying.

The fulfilled request did not include any investigative reports, and even though the incident reports show that investigators interviewed several people who were at the home on Romero Street when Storey’s body was recovered, no documentation of those interviews was included.

When the Optic asked the City Clerk’s office about other potential records, the office responded by saying “per LVPD Commander Steve Pacheco, the Shana Storey case is still considered an open investigation and has been upgraded to an open homicide case. No other information is releasable until a suspect or suspects are charged with the crimes.”

The Office of the Attorney General chided LVPD earlier this year for illegally withholding records simply because an investigation is ongoing, and last month, the state Supreme Court issued an opinion limiting a provision in IPRA that shields certain law enforcement records from public disclosure. In the unanimous decision, the court said IPRA “does not create a blanket exemption from inspection for law enforcement records relating to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

The Optic raised concerns about the missing records with Mayor Trujillo and City Attorney Scott Aaron. Initially, Aaron referred the Optic to the City Clerk’s office, but after Mayor Trujillo asked Aaron to look into the matter, Aaron wrote, “To the best of my knowledge, it appears that all information obtained from LVPD regarding your IPRA was released.”

 

Seeking closure 

Four months after Storey’s body was discovered, her family still struggles to find closure. An autopsy report was released earlier this month, but it offers very few answers.

“A definitive cause and manner of Ms. Storey’s death could not be reliably determined,” the report stated. “The plastic bag over her head and circumstances by which she was found remain concerning for a potential asphyxial mechanism of death, such as suffocation, which could not be ruled in or out due to the decomposed state of her remains.”

Some closure could come for Stansbury and other family members by knowing how Storey’s body ended up under the floor of a house. They’d also like to know who put her there, and why.

“She didn’t put a bag over her head and wrap herself in a blanket, a tarp and barbed wire or whatever and put herself under the bathroom floor,” Stansbury said. “It makes me so angry. It just feels like (police) don’t care because of the type of person she was.”

Stansbury said she and her sister were very close and spoke often. She said it’s important that people know Storey was loved, and that she is missed.

“We were all there to support her and help her,” Stansbury said. “She had family that really loved her and cared about her … Just because she was homeless and living the way she was, didn’t mean that we weren’t there to support her and love her, it’s just that some people need to take the steps to change themselves, because we can’t change their lifestyle for them.”