Woman charged with sex trafficking of girl Housing slowdown no cause for panic Decision in 2005 death in question
Wound for spouse of 2016 slaying suspect was called self-inflicted
The Clark County coroner’s office no longer believes that Edwin Colon, the husband of a woman accused of fatally stabbing a former UNLV professor, died by suicide nearly 14 years ago.
The ruling has sparked a review of the case from North Las Vegas police, which puts Luis Colon one step closer to finding clarity on his brother’s death.
In 2005, Rita Colon’s husband of less than a year died from a stab wound to the neck, which the North Las Vegas Police Department and the coroner’s office at the time determined was self-inflicted.
Luis Colon, Edwin Colon’s brother, asked the coroner’s office to take another look at the case this year, and after a re
view, his brother’s manner of death has been changed from “suicide” to “undetermined.”
“Some new information came to us, and we did a comprehensive review of the investigation,” Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said Thursday . “We decided that we don’t believe it’s a suicide.”
Luis Colon has told the Las Vegas Review-journal that he believes the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death are eerily similar to how Leroy Pelton, a 76-year-old former UNLV professor, was killed in Henderson in November 2016, a slaying in which 44-year-old Rita Colon is a suspect.
As with Edwin Colon’s case, the coroner’s office determined that Pelton died from at least one stab wound to the neck. The man also had a stab wound to his liver and defensive knife wounds on both hands.
Investigators allege that Rita Colon’s motive was monetary. They said she tried to access Pelton’s
$1.1 million retirement account after he was killed, according to an arrest warrant.
The Henderson Police Department announced in January that Rita Colon, believed to be a former student and girlfriend of Pelton’s, was a suspect in the man’s death. She was apprehended in Peru in December 2017, where she remains, awaiting extradition
Detectives might interview Rita Colon when, or if, she is extradited to Henderson for the murder charge she faces in Pelton’s death. An investigation also could prompt detectives to reinterview family, friends and the neighbors from whom Rita Colon asked for help the night her husband died.
The review could prompt a homicide investigation or a death investigation — a category used by police in cases such as apparent suicides or overdoses, when the manner of death isn’t immediately clear, Leavitt said.
If murder charges were to be brought again Rita Colon in her husband’s death, Leavitt said, “that means someone grossly missed something” in 2005.
“It’s not that we don’t want to admit we’re wrong. It’s just that if it is wrong, we need to fix it,” he said.
After speaking with the coroner’s office Thursday, Luis Colon said knowing his brother’s body couldn’t be exhumed was difficult.
Despite his family’s wishes to bury his brother in New York, Luis Colon said Rita Colon was able to have Edwin Colon’s body cremated in 2005 because she was his next of kin. He said he recalled that at the funeral, she said that the decision “was between husband and wife, and that he wished to be cremated.”
“We were already mourning and just trying to move on,” he said Thursday. “It was a fight that we weren’t going to win.”
But Luis Colon said he was optimistic that his family is now one step closer to finding answers.
“At least I know that it’s in the process,” he said. “I do feel good. Honestly I do.”