Missing 2-year-old found dead in Las Vegas; Mom’s boyfriend arrested for murder
05/14/2021 1:24 pm PDT
LAS VEGAS (TCD) --
A Las Vegas man was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son a week after the boy was reported missing.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police received a report of a missing 2-year-old boy on Wednesday, May 5, 2021, identified as Amari Nicholson. He was reported missing from an apartment complex at 3684 Paradise Rd.
Police said the circumstances of the boy’s disappearance were considered suspicious.
Investigators said Terrell Rhodes, 27, was identified as the primary suspect early on.
On Tuesday, May 11, Rhodes was arrested for the murder of Amari Nicholson. He was held without bond at the Clark County Detention Center.
On Wednesday, Las Vegas Metro Police detectives found Nicholson’s body near the 400 block of East Twain Ave. The cause and manner of death were not immediately released.
KTNV-TV reports the child’s mother left the boy with Rhodes, her boyfriend, at their apartment when she took an emergency trip to Colorado to care for her mother on April 30.
Homicide detectives found blood on a bedroom wall and a plastic bag “filled with soiled children’s clothing in a closet,” KTNV reports.
Rhodes told police that the boy had urinated in his clothing, and Rhodes struck the boy “three or four times in the body with a closed fist,” KTNV reports.
Rhodes said the boy stopped breathing, so he attempted CPR, but the boy died, KTNV reports. Rhodes reportedly told police he disposed of the boy’s body.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports Rhodes allegedly grabbed an officer’s gun during his arrest. Rhodes was “briefly able to retrieve an officer’s firearm,” according to a Metro Police lieutenant.
Rhodes was charged with four counts of resisting a public officer with a firearm and four counts of assault on a protected person with the use of a deadly weapon, in addition to the murder charge.
MORE:
