Teen girl’s burned body found outside apartments

Metro seeking answers in ‘very unusual’ killing

A lengthy investigation is ahead for Las Vegas police after a teenage girl’s burned body was found Saturday morning in a northwest valley apartment complex.

“It’s pretty gruesome,” Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Dan McGrath said. “We don’t have a lot of information, but we have a very petite young girl who is dead.”

A Rock Springs Apartments resident found the girl’s body about 11 a.m. in the rear of the complex in the 700 block of Rock Springs Drive, near Washington Avenue. Police estimate the girl was 14 to 18 years old.

“It’s very unusual,” McGrath said of the location where she was found.

Her body was tucked between two walls in a hidden corner of the complex.

Authorities didn’t know the girl’s exact cause of death Saturday afternoon, but they believe her body was dumped and set on fire sometime Friday night after she was killed.

An accelerant was poured on her to enable the fire. Burn marks could be seen on the walls near her body, he said.

The girl was found partially clothed, but McGrath said it’s possible some of her clothing may have burned off in the fire.

Investigators are scouring missing persons and runaway reports to identify the girl “because juveniles don’t usually have criminal records or fingerprints in the system,” McGrath said.

“We have detectives knocking on doors talking to everyone they can,” he said.

Surveillance cameras also will be reviewed “to see the ins and outs” of the complex Friday night and Saturday morning, he said.

As detectives knocked on doors, resident Quinn Braun was pacing back and forth Saturday afternoon outside of his apartment, just several hundred feet from where the body was burned.

“I’m surprised,” he said. “I never expected anything like this.”

Braun, 21, said he is concerned for his girlfriend.

“She might be looking over her shoulder a lot more now,” he said.

But his girlfriend is more worried about him.

“She told me to stop taking the trash out at night,” he said.

“Just small things you usually wouldn’t have to think twice about, right?”

As of 2 p.m, McGrath said the body wouldn’t be moved for at least a few hours while arson investigators, crime scene investigators and homicide detectives work.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do on this case,” McGrath said. “Hopefully, we’ll find who did this and bring them to justice.”

This is the 34th homicide in Clark County and the 30th investigated by Metro in 2017.