The Murder of Daniel Mendoza - He said, He said
After Daniel Mendoza was shot and killed outside his apartment at McKellar Circle, the investigation should have been straightforward in at least one sense... the blue Dodge pickup truck with two men inside. Within days, investigators would know those men were Las Vegas Metro police officers Ron Mortensen and Christopher Brady.
But from there, almost nothing was simple.
In Episode 130, Part 2 of our series on the murder of Daniel Mendoza, we pick up in the hours after the shooting, when two off-duty officers had to decide what to do next. Neither of them immediately called it in. Neither of them rushed to report what had happened. Instead, over the course of a long and increasingly complicated weekend, their stories began to split in two completely different directions.
They could agree on a couple of things, though. They both admitted they had been drinking, admitted they were in the truck, and agreed on the direction the truck pulled into Daniel’s apartment complex.
Unfortunately, each one accused the other of pulling the trigger.
In part 2 we look closely at those competing accounts, the decisions made after Daniel was killed, and the questions that followed. Why was one officer treated as a witness while the other was arrested? Why was the only interview with Christopher Brady so brief? Why was his father, a longtime Metro detective, allowed in the room? And why did so much physical evidence become compromised, altered, washed, repainted, removed, or disappear?
Through all of the conflicting testimony and finger-pointing, one thing never changes.
Daniel Mendoza was dead.
His father lost a son, his fiancée lost the future they were planning, and his family was left with grief, questions, and a system that seemed to move very differently depending on who was wearing the badge.
This episode is about the fracture in the blue wall, but it is also about how hard it can be to find the truth when the people at the center of the investigation are police officers themselves.
Listen to Episode 130, Part 2: The Murder of Daniel Mendoza now at sinspod.co/130
Co-Host
Your co-host John comes to you with 25 years of technology consulting experience and a strong interest in True Crime. John will host the Tech Corner episodes that punctuate Sins & Survivors. In those episodes, his focus will be educating people on the pitfalls of privacy in the digital age, and endeavor to make everyone a bit safer. Topics like cyberstalking, online safety, removal of information from online directories, and new privacy features on mobile devices are just a few topics we'll cover. Email him your questions at Tech@SinsandSurvivors.com
The Murder of Daniel Mendoza - Who Pulled the Trigger?????
