LAS VEGAS– 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 guides in June 2018.
Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter stood next to his attorneys, shaking his head and glancing a few times at the jurors as the unanimous verdicts were read Tuesday in Clark County District Court, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Trotter, 37, faces a possible death penalty or life in prison following his convictions on charges of murder, burglary and robbery with a weapon. He was convicted of 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 in the penalty phase of his trial on Tuesday.
Jurors deliberated for about three hours after hearing about two weeks of evidence and testimony, the Review-Journal reported.
They learned that Nghia, 38, owned a tour company 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 failed to show up for a group trip. Police said hotel employees later determined that the door lock in their room was not working properly.
Trotter was identified as a suspect in the murders before he and his girlfriend, Itaska Dean, were arrested about a week later following a police chase in Chino, California.
Trotter was serving a five-year probation at the time after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of resisting a police officer with a weapon, authorities said. He has been jailed in Las Vegas awaiting trial, which was postponed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and preliminary investigations.
Dean pleaded guilty in California to evading arrest. She was not charged with any crime in the murders of Nghia and Nguyen, and testified at 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 contained a purse, two wallets, a cellphone, jewelry, watches and Vietnamese cash.
Prosecutor Michelle Fleck characterized Nghia and Nguyen as “completely innocent people” who did nothing to deserve death, the Review-Journal reported.
Attorney Lisa Rasmussen argued that forensic evidence was lacking and that Trotter’s DNA and fingerprints were not found in the hotel room, the newspaper said.