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Las Vegas man charged with 42-year-old cold case murder of mother of one after police matched his DNA with victim’s nail scrapings
- Paul Nuttall, 64, was arrested Thursday for the 1980 murder of Sandra DiFelice, a young mother who was only 25 years old at the time of her death.
- He was charged with public murder, use of a deadly weapon, assault and burglary after police matched his DNA with the victim’s fingernail scrapings.
- The young victim was sexually assaulted before she was allegedly murdered by Nuttal on December 26, 1980
- The case was reopened in February 2021 when Las Vegas detectives reassessed and then resubmitted evidence for DNA testing using updated technology.
- New evidence included the suspect’s fingerprint that matched a sample collected from a drinking glass found in DeFelice’s living room, KLAS reported.
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A Las Vegas con man who has been on the run for more than 40 years has been charged in the cold case murder of a mother of one child after DNA was found under the victim’s fingernails.
Paul Nuttall, 64, was arrested Thursday for the cold-blooded 1980 murder of Sandra DiFelice, a young mother who was only 25 years old at the time of her death.
The young victim was raped and beaten before being murdered by Nuttall on December 26, 1980. The victim’s roommate knew the 21-year-old suspect.
In late October, Nuttall was charged with public murder with use of a deadly weapon, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon, officials said.
On Monday, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detectives made the stunning announcement in the 42-year-old cold case.
Nuttall is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center, authorities said. His next court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
LVMPD Lt. Jason Johansson was delighted to share the news at a press conference on Monday.
“My cold case detectives had the pleasure of making that one call that every cold case detective wants to make — and that was the call specifically to Sandra DiFelice’s daughter,” Johansson said, the news channel reported.
Sandra DeFelice, 25, was sexually assaulted before she was murdered on December 26, 1980, allegedly by Paul Nuttall, who was 21 at the time
Paul Nuttal was on the run for more than 40 years after killing the young mother on December 26, 1980. Las Vegas police made the stunning announcement of the arrest of the suspects on Thursday.
DeFelice looks admiringly at her three-year-old in an undated photo
At the time of the murder, detectives collected plenty of evidence from the scene and developed a person of interest, but the case went cold.
In February 2021, the four-decade-old case was reopened by detectives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Cold Case Division. The team reviewed additional evidence and then resubmitted it for testing using DNA technology.
Part of the new evidence collected was a DNA sample taken from Nuttal in 2021, a fingerprint that matched a sample collected from a drinking glass found in DeFelice’s living room, according to CBS affiliate KLAS. , which reviewed documents related to the case.
On October 27, Nuttall was taken into custody by the Criminal Arrest Team, a multi-jurisdictional task force led by the FBI and staffed by the Major Violations Bureau of the LMVPD. The team has been compromised by the police forces of the FBI, LVMPD, Henderson and North Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s social media post with photos and information about the decades-old cold case
Before the brutal murder, DiFelice lived with a female roommate near Bonanza Road and Maryland Parkway, not far from downtown Las Vegas.
Police said DiFelice’s roommate told them she knew the suspect and later told that Nutall had been lurking outside their home the day DiFelice was killed, KLAS News reported.
According to a report, the roommate said that “Nuttal asked if he could sleep in the house because he had nowhere else to go.”
She told Nuttall she couldn’t allow that because [DiFelice] was in the house and didn’t know him well,” the news channel reported.
At around 9:30 p.m. on December 26, police responded to a call from a corpse discovered in a house in eastern Las Vegas.
When authorities arrived, they found DiFelice. The young woman was dead and evidence at the scene indicated that she had been raped and beaten.
Her three-year-old child was not at home at the time of the murder, the news channel reported.