Model’s murder spurs guilty plea

Under deal, woman admits being accessory

A woman with ties to the suspects in the slaying of a 24-year-old Las Vegas model whose body was found encased in cement has pleaded guilty, court records show.

Lisa Mort, the 32-year-old girlfriend of a man charged with murder in Esmeralda Gonzalez’s slaying, cut a deal with prosecutors last week and pleaded guilty to accessory to murder.

While jailed on unrelated drug charges, Mort reportedly tried to warn Christopher Prestipino that Las Vegas homicide detectives were investigating Gonzalez’s death.

When detectives initially questioned Mort about Gonzalez’s disappearance last year, Mort denied knowing anything about the woman at the time. But prosecutors said she then called Prestipino and told him, “I just got some visitors. Go, baby, go. That’s all I can say.”

Prestipino was arrested in connection with the slaying after he returned from a trip to Belize, according to court records.

In exchange for Mort’s plea, prosecutors agreed to drop the drug charges against her. Mort’s lawyer could not be reached Monday.

Prosecutors said last month that Prestipino tried to contact Mort while he was out of custody and she was in jail, despite court orders prohibiting contact between the two.

In court papers, prosecutors detailed a Jan. 17 phone call in which Prestipino told another inmate at the jail that he had sold his house, and that if “it can get her off … she can testify against

to University Medical Center in Las Vegas in critical condition, but the boy later died. They have not been identified by authorities, although other students, social media and online postings identify them as Alex and Charlotte Bush.

Mikinzie Dowdy and Jayson Cooper, both students at Somerset Academy, said Monday that they were friends with Alex Bush. They showed up Monday afternoon at a makeshift memorial on Lone Mountain to offer their respects to their late friend and his sister, who remains hospitalized.

“He loved hockey,” Dowdy said of Alex Bush. “That was one of his favorite sports, and he always talked about how he wanted to, when he got older, he was going to become a hockey player, like a famous hockey player. That was one of his main goals.”

‘You can barely see the light’

Both Cooper and Dowdy said the crosswalk where their classmates were struck is dangerous, especially during daytime hours, when the flashing lights are hardly visible in the sunlight’s glare.

“Because of the way the sun hits it, you can barely see the light,” Dowdy said. “I don’t know how fast the truck is going, but you can barely see it, and it only goes on for a certain amount of time to get across.”

Cooper offered similar observations.

“Cars just run through it and they don’t really stop,” he said. “They only stop if they see you, and if they can’t see you, they are just running through and you have to stop yourself. It’s such a tiny flashlight you can’t really see it.”

North Las Vegas police said they were not aware of any previous incidents at the crossing. There was not a school crossing guard at the crossing because it has flashing lights, they said.

Dowdy said many students choose not to use the crosswalk on Lone Mountain and instead walk roughly 100 yards west to the intersection of Lone Mountain and Losee Road, where there are traffic lights at a fourway intersection. Additionally, much of the stretch of Losee in front of the academy is a marked school zone with flashing lights and a 15 mph speed limit, while Lone Mountain is not a marked school zone and there are no signs displaying the 35 mph speed limit within roughly a half a mile in either direction.

“I personally feel like less cars stop here (at the crosswalk) and more cars stop (at the intersection), and I feel like that is a more safer route,” Dowdy said.

Makeshift memorial grows

The memorial on Lone Mountain in honor of the children was slowly growing Monday as passersby stopped and placed candles, flowers or trinkets at the site. One who showed up to pay his respects was Aiden Maffett, 10. The child’s mother, Amy Markoe, said her son played hockey with Alex Bush at the Las Vegas Ice Center.

“I came to support him and all the things he’s done for me,” Maffett said.

Maffett said his friend came to his birthday party. Maffett and his mother brought a box with a photo of Alex’s picture in tribute to the child. Maffett said “we added wings” to the picture.

“We are putting this out here to pay our respects,” Markoe said.

Community members also were digging into their wallets to support the family, donating more than $45,000 via two separate Gofundme accounts.

A Gofundme account titled “Help the family of Losee siblings struck by a car” had pledges of more than $23,000 from 352 donors as of Monday evening. A second Gofundme account, created by Patricia Hansen-vosberg,

who said she worked with the children’s father, Aaron, many years ago at a Shakespeare festival in Utah, had more than $26,000 in pledges.

“I know that the theater community is a very generous community, but I was still shocked,” Hansen-vosberg said of the donations. “It blows my mind as to how people have stepped up.”

Kline, meanwhile, faces charges of failing to use due care around pedestrians and one charge each of failing to maintain lane and failing to give full time and attention to driving. North Las Vegas police said they filed an additional charge of vehicular manslaughter against Kline on Sunday.

North Las Vegas police public information officer Eric Leavitt said via email Monday that the distracted driving charge was based on “witness (accounts) and driving patterns.”

“Vehicles make small marks on the roadway in accidents and the traffic division has hours and hours of training to determine where the vehicle came from and the pattern it shows,” he said.

He said investigators are still analyzing evidence from the scene in an effort to determine whether Kline was speeding.

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0390. Follow @Glennatrj on Twitter.