LAS VEGAS -- The family of a Las Vegas man who was stabbed to death in his apartment nearly nine years ago believes they know who committed the crime. Yet the suspect remains agonizingly out of reach in an Arizona prison.
In May of 2003, someone entered Mario Stein's apartment and stabbed him to death in his bed. The case generated few leads, despite an eyewitness to the murder. But in 2008, cold case detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department re-examined the evidence and identified a suspect. Yet Stein's family is no closer to justice.
"He was way too young," said Mario's sister Roberta Botello. "He loved kids. I know he wanted his own kids. He didn't even have a chance to get there."
During the early morning hours of May 29, 2003, Mario was stabbed 38 times. A woman claiming to be his girlfriend told police a Hispanic man entered Mario's apartment with a knife, killed him, raped her, and then left.
Read the Clark County Homicide Report
His girlfriend pointed detectives to semen stains on the mattress as evidence of her assault. But inconsistencies in her story raised red flags for detectives, and for a time she was considered a suspect. Then the investigation, absent new leads, turned cold.
"I never gave up hope. I just didn't know how much work was really getting put into it. I mean, there's murders everyday in this city," said Botello. "I was just afraid it was getting underneath the pile."
Then in 2008, Metro Cold Case Detective Dave Culver took a fresh look at the case. Thinking it was a random act of violence, Culver re-submitted several items of evidence for forensic testing, including a beer bottle from the floor of Mario's bedroom and fabric from his mattress.
According to the police report, fingerprint and DNA analysis identified the source of the material as Miguel Flores-Duarte -- a Nevada ex-con serving time in an Arizona prison.
"We talked to him at great length. He was in the Las Vegas valley during that time frame, and that's what we do know," said Detective Culver.
Read the arrest warrant for Miguel Flores-Duarte (GRAPHIC CONTENT)
According to police records, two days after Stein's murder, Flores-Duarte kidnapped his own daughter at knife-point, just a mile from Stein's apartment. He allegedly cut his daughter's babysitter's husband, forced the couple into the bathroom, and then tied them up with electrical cord.
Flores-Duarte served six months in jail and was subsequently deported. A month later, he returned to the U.S. illegally to again kidnap his child. This time, he shot her mother in the process. A manhunt by Phoenix-area law enforcement resulted in Flores-Duarte's arrest and conviction. His earliest possible release date is November of 2030.
After the tests came back, Detective Culver believes Flores-Duarte is responsible for Stein's murder. "I'm pretty confident that he's the person that's our guy," he said.
The Clark County District Attorney filed murder charges against Flores-Duarte in 2010, but the office has not moved to extradite him. Chris Owens, the chief of the DA's criminal division, declined to discuss the case in detail but did note the character of the evidence and the challenges with the interstate prosecution of prisoners as primary concerns.
After nine years, none of that makes much sense to Mario's family. They want their uncle, brother and son to finally take center stage at the trial of his killer.
"I don't want him to slip through the cracks," said Botello. "I pray every single day and night to get my brother some justice -- to get that guy over here, to find out who did this, why did they do this, why did they take his life like that."
As a result of 8 News NOW's investigation, representatives with the DA's office plan to meet with Stein's family in the next few days to discuss the case with them privately. For strategic and ethical reasons, they say it would be inappropriate to comment further.
Mario's case file remains in Detective Culver's stack.
If you have any information about Stein's murder, call Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555.
Mario Stein
Miguel Flores-Duarte
