Warrant: Strip hotel room where tourists were slain had broken door latch

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Metro Police

Julius Trotter

Thu, Jun 14, 2018 (7:40 p.m.)

To enter the Strip hotel room where he would fatally attack two Vietnamese tourists, viciously stabbing them with a short blade and then stealing their belongings, the suspect only had to push open the door.

That’s because the latch plate on it was broken “and the door would not properly close on its own,” so anyone could simply push it could gain access to the 21st floor Circus Circus room, according to a Metro Police warrant.

Hotel engineers discovered this the day following the June 1 killings of Sang Boi Nghia, 38, a tour operator from Vietnam, and Khuong Le Ba Nguyen, a Vietnamese co-worker from the company, police said.

Julius Trotter, 31, also suspected in a case in which an elderly woman was “severely” beaten and robbed in May as she entered her room at the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas, was arrested following a car chase in California on June 7.

He hasn’t been extradited to Las Vegas, court logs indicate.

The probe began when a tour group became concerned when their colleagues did not show to a planned day tour to the Grand Canyon.

They must have slept in, a tour guide assumed, according to the report. But when more time passed and they didn’t report, hotel security was summoned.

Nearby guests only reported hearing a “thump” and a struggle around the same time of the killings, but didn’t report it until after the fact, police said.

Looking back at surveillance footage, investigators spotted the victims going up to their floor at 12:21 a.m., and their door registered the key card two minutes later, police said.

Less than four hours later, Trotter also was caught on an elevator camera as he tried to hide his face, police said. About 40 minutes later, he was again captured on camera, this time hauling a victim's backpack with his shirt now inside out.

Police have said that before Trotter arrived at the room occupied by the victims, he likely checked multiple doors — a criminal act perpetrated by suspects who law enforcement have deemed “door pushers.”

And he didn’t immediately leave the hotel after the crime, police said. He proceeded to a room where he and a woman were staying at. They were captured getting into a cab about 5 a.m. with multiple pieces of luggage that likely carried Nghia’s brown purse, cellphone, watch, ring and necklace, and Nguyen’s blue backpack.

Court documents don’t indicate the woman is facing any charges.

From there, police tracked the duo to an off-Strip resort where they rented another room and used players’ cards registered to their names, police said. Furthermore, cellphone records placed Trotter near the scene of the crime.

Five days later, a warrant for Trotter’s arrest was filed, and a few hours later, he was tracked to the Los Angeles area where a task force of Southern Nevada law enforcement officers and FBI agents arrested him in the early-morning hours after a car chase.

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