On the late night of January 18, 2017, 27-year-old Alyssa Nicole Velasco, a Black/African American woman, was shot to death in a Las Vegas apartment. Police say the incident began with a dispute over drugs and escalated into a shooting that also killed 33-year-old Myron Manghum; both victims suffered fatal gunshot wounds to the head, and Alyssa also had wounds to her neck. A wounded survivor, Johnny Brooks, led officers to an apartment on the 900 block of West Washington Avenue after police initially responded to a report on the 700 block of McWilliams Avenue of a man with gunshot wounds to his hands.

Investigators arrested two men, Durwin Allen and Terrell Stewart, on murder charges. The prosecution’s case depended on Brooks’s testimony, but his cooperation proved unreliable: he was difficult to locate for trial, was later arrested on a material witness warrant, and when he appeared in court recanted an earlier identification, saying he could not remember the assailants’ faces.

If anyone knew Alyssa, Myron, Johnny Brooks, or saw activity in the West Washington Avenue area that night, please share what was seen or heard.