Inset: Spencer McDonald (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department). Background: The apartment complex where McDonald killed three people in Las Vegas, Nev. (Google Maps).
A Las Vegas man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for a murder rampage that took the life of his grandmother and two others.
In July, Spencer McDonald, 32, entered pleas of guilty but mentally ill for each of three murder charges – ensuring prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in the gruesome case that saw the defendant spend significant time with the corpses of his victims after the fact.
The days-long spate of violence took the lives of McDonald”s grandmother, Dina Vail, 80, her boyfriend, Andrew “AJ” Graden, 43, and apartment maintenance worker Christopher Brassard, 45.
On Tuesday, the defendant was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by a judge in Clark County, Nevada.
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During McDonald’s sentencing hearing, the judge offered the since-condemned man a chance to explain his crimes.
“I can say why it happened,” McDonald said, according to a courtroom report by Las Vegas-based CBS affiliate KLAS. “The timing was that of being required to see a psychiatrist in order to reinstate disability income. I was deeply afraid of the side effects.”
In mid-June 2023, McDonald walked into his grandmother’s unit at the Rancho De Montana Apartments on Flamingo Road with a “cosplay sword” and kitchen knife. In the ensuing attack, the octogenarian ballet teacher was stabbed until she died, according to the indictment.
Then, the killer waited for Graden so the bloodletting could continue, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Prosecutors believe Vail’s boyfriend was bludgeoned to death with some kind of a “mace or sledgehammer-type instrument.”
Eventually, the grandson would confess.
“Spencer explained that a couple days prior, in the early morning hours, he killed Dina by bludgeoning and stabbing her while she was in bed,” a police report obtained by Law&Crime reads. “Andrew was not home at the time he killed Dina. After killing Dina, Spencer waited in the living room for Andrew to return to the apartment. Once Andrew entered the apartment, Spencer bludgeoned and stabbed him in the living room. Spencer dragged Andrew’s body into the master bedroom with Dina’s body. Spencer lived in the apartment for several days and went about his normal activities.”
Those “normal activities” were only interrupted after Vail failed to show for a ballet class on June 26, 2023. First, a friend went to her apartment to pick her up, but Vail did not respond to multiple knocks. The friend, at first, thought she must have gotten a ride from someone else – albeit uncharacteristically and without sharing her change of plans. Then, when Vail failed to show entirely, the friend reached out via text message to the killer and both his victims up to that point. McDonald replied to say Vail “took the day off.”
A welfare check was requested the next day. Two apartment maintenance workers were the first to arrive, the police report notes.
Christopher Brassard, 45, was one of the two workers who knocked on the door, heard no answer, and used a master key to gain entry – before he was beaten with a hammer and stabbed to death. The report details the grim scene they saw before the attack.
“When they entered the apartment [the surviving maintenance worker] saw a piece of cardboard on the floor covering what he thought was blood,” the document reads. “[The survivor] then saw what he believed to be blood on the walls.”
Immediately after registering their horror, the workers saw a man rush out of “the spare bedroom” wielding a hammer, according to the report. The workers both turned and ran from the man identified in the report as “the tenant’s grandson.” Brassard was struck and cried out in pain. The second worker was also hit by the hammer, he said, but managed to escape. Later, the surviving worker went back into unit number 2005 to retrieve his cellphone, “which he had dropped,” according to the report. By then, Brassard was dead inside the living room. Prosecutors allege McDonald finished him off with a knife.
Details and images of the crime scene were obtained from the Clark County District Court by Las Vegas-based Fox affiliate KVVU.
The mace used by Spencer McDonald to kill a man in Las Vegas (Clark County District Court).
Under the terms of the plea deal, the defendant will be cordoned off from other inmates and receive “acute” mental health treatment until a state-provided professional determines he is mentally fit enough to be brought into the general population, according to Las Vegas-based ABC affiliate KTNV.
The killer’s public defender remarked on the contours of the agreement during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
“It takes into account the overwhelming loss,” defense attorney Anna Clark reportedly said. “Both of those statements are true at the same time, that his life has value and their lives have value.”
But, in a not unusual turn of events, one of the victim’s relatives spoke up to take issue with how the defense framed the outcome.
“I object to what the defendant’s lawyer just said about the defendant,” Graden’s sister told the court. “My family will feel AJ’s absence for the rest of our lives, and this is truly unforgivable. Nothing short of death by stabbing and bludgeoning seems sufficient as punishment for this predator.”
