117 Off The Cuff 

Shaun Welcome to another episode of Off the Cuff conversations with Sean and John about Vegas news, case updates, technology, and whatever else we feel like talking about. I'm your host, Sean.

John And I'm your co-host, John. This week we have six topics we want to discuss, plus three bonus topics exclusively for our subscribers in this week's Swing Shift episode. As we have been doing throughout the season, we want to start off with a missing person. Cold case from Las Vegas Metro Police's cold case database. So do you want to start us off with that?

Shaun Yeah. Sure thing. The missing person case we want to cover this week involves two brothers who went missing at age thirteen and fourteen. And like many of the juvenile missing persons you see in the Metro Cold case database, there is not a lot of information about these two boys. Cristian Daniel Cruz went missing at age fourteen in twenty twenty two. Now he would be eighteen years old. And Jonathan Guillermo Cruz was age thirteen when he went missing. So now he would be seventeen. These boys, their names appear in a couple of different ways, a couple different spellings, more of a Spanish spelling versus an American or English spelling. Christian, sometimes spelled with the H or without the H, and Jonathan sometimes spelled J o n a t h o n. And they also have gone by the last name B e r z u n z a, so they might be going by any of those names and they might have traveled to Arizona, but they were last seen at their home in Las Vegas on November eleventh, twenty twenty two. They're both Hispanic boys with straight black hair, clean shaven, and we have some age progressed images of them that we'll share on our Instagram and Facebook, so you can see photos of the brothers and please share them because you just never know if your share could be the one that helps them finally be found. I hate that we don't have more details about these two boys, even searching under different spellings of their names and different last names, I wasn't able to find out anything more than that. There is a note on their file that says if they are located, do not approach them and immediately contact law enforcement. And the number they have is to call Las Vegas Metro Police Department at seven oh two eight two eight two nine oh seven.

John The first case we want to cover is about the Flamingo Resort and Casino on the strip. The Flamingo is well known for having a wildlife habitat inside of the hotel. It's four acres of waterfalls, rivers, birds, turtles, fish, brown pelicans and of course, a flock of actual Chilean flamingos. Some people don't know that there are actual flamingos at the Flamingo, but there are. On March third, just a few days ago, police received a nine hundred eleven call from the Flamingo with reports that someone had hopped the fence and was attacking the flamingos inside the enclosure. Video showed him inside the enclosure, grabbing Peachey, a twenty seven year old flamingo, and pinning another bird down. He then carried Peachey back to his room and you can hear Peachey screaming the entire time on the video. They arrived along with their animal cruelty unit and arrested the person whose name is Mitchell Fairborn. He's a thirty three year old Canadian tourist. He claimed that he was drunk, but he also claimed that Peachey had an injured wing and he wanted to pop it back into place. On his phone. They found several timestamped videos of him terrorizing Peachey, whose wing was badly injured. In one of the videos, he's heard laughing and saying he's going to take the bird home with him. Several other flamingos were also hurt when he was in the enclosure. He was released on twelve thousand dollars bail. His passport was confiscated and he was given a GPS tracker to where he was told by the judge he can't leave Las Vegas, and if he steps out of line before his next court date, he will be remanded to jail without bail. He is set to return to court on May sixth and will keep you updated. He's charged with four counts of animal cruelty, according to a statement from Caesars, which owns the Flamingo. The birds are under a veterinarian's care and they obviously hope they make a full recovery, but that's far from certain. Peachy, though at least luckily, is still back in the enclosure and safe. Hopefully they'll make some changes to the fence so it's harder for people to get in and prevent that from happening again. To me, this seems to be an example of people coming here to Las Vegas and forgetting that this is, in fact a city with laws, and they can't just come here and do whatever they want without any consequences. We very much hope that they give this person the maximum possible penalty under the new law passed after the horrific case we covered previously of Reba the Bulldog. The penalties for animal abuse are now much stiffer. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time this has happened. In twenty twelve, a man named Justin Teixeira beheaded an exotic bird at the Flamingo while he was drunk. Eventually, he was sentenced to only six months of boot camp after serving one hundred and ninety days at Indian Springs Correctional Facility.

Shaun We covered several cases over the past three seasons of animal cruelty in Las Vegas. I mean, you mentioned Reba the Bulldog, but there were other cases of people just dumping animals in the trash and things like that. It just seems like this is like a collision of those two ideas, like you said. Someone thinks that they can just get away with doing whatever they want. Jump over the enclosure and hurt these animals, almost forgetting that they're real and they can feel pain. And then we also have a problem in the city with just animal cruelty in general.

John Yeah. We talked about the fact that there's that stretch of road out in the desert where people take all kinds of animals, Not just dogs, cats, goats, horses, farm animals and they just dump them out there. Yeah. And it's so remote that it's not something that can really easily be monitored, but it's become this area where people know that's a place where you go and dump your animals. It's just horrific. I don't know what's going on.

Shaun And we had that story about the pet cremains just being dumped as well. Yep. If anyone's seen the video of this man torturing these birds, I mean, it's like almost impossible to watch.

John It's hard to watch. Yeah, it's hard to watch.

Shaun And like you said, I'm glad that they're going to look at how to make that still a habitat for the birds that people can enjoy, but just protect them a little bit better. Because like you said, this was not the first time something like this had happened to these poor creatures. It's like we want to have things like that at any casino that are interesting for people to see, but I don't like it when the animals are at risk. It wasn't too long ago that they shut down the lion habitat, not because the lions were in danger or any people were in danger, but just because it becomes like this gross thing that like these animals are being kept in captivity for. For who? For what purpose?

John Yep.

Shaun Speaking of Las Vegas entertainment news, there was a big announcement from the MGM just last week that April thirtieth will be David Copperfield's final show in Las Vegas.

John Wow.

Shaun He's been performing here for twenty five years. He said he's now sixty nine and he'll soon be announcing his largest project yet. But the MGM was kind of like, we wish you well and our relationship is done. Now, the speculation is this announcement came very shortly after the DOJ's release of new Epstein related documents, and it's unclear as to whether his show is ending because of what was in the Epstein documents. But the timing's pretty suspicious. And these records released showed that FBI investigators had been investigating Copperfield and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein back in two thousand and seven. So this is almost twenty years ago, nineteen years ago. And the records showed that the FBI was looking into whether Epstein and Copperfield might have shared a predilection for minors. That's a quote from the document or referred victims to each other. And back in two thousand and seven, the FBI uncovered what agents described as a business list belonging to Copperfield. And according to the FBI's memo in the Epstein files, it was like a compilation of women he had targeted for sexual relationships. So kind of like a little black book kind of list. Two of the women listed were connected to the Epstein investigation in Miami, including one woman who had previously reported that Epstein was grooming her, had groomed her. Copperfield also. This is an open secret about him. I think this was pretty well known. He often provided complimentary show tickets to Epstein and his guests, and there were allegations that I've heard these allegations before in other contexts, that employees were instructed to identify young women in the audiences and bring them backstage to meet David Copperfield. Usually these women were in their teens and early twenties. Now, of course, David Copperfield and his lawyers have denied any sexual misconduct. They state that he was not friends with Epstein and had only met him a handful of times. But the picture attached to the Guardian article that we have in our sources shows David Copperfield embracing Jasmine Maxwell, and they're both wearing terrycloth robes in this picture. So to be clear, David Copperfield has not been charged with anything either now or, you know, nineteen years ago. Backed on anything based on anything in the two thousand and seven memo. But one FBI official later claimed that the US Attorney's office handling the case was weak and intimidated by copper's financial resources. Though the email memo also mentioned other complications involving things like jurisdiction and witness credibility. So a later email from the FBI official, written in twenty nineteen after Jeffrey Epstein died, went into the details of that earlier investigation. And the FBI official in that memo said, I don't know if any of his victims were underage. There were allegations he drugged some of the females. I recall Epstein's name coming up in our investigation a number of times, and Copperfield appeared to have a very close relationship with, and Copperfield's name was on a list that the investigators found that included other men, which was labeled at some of which had reputations like Copperfield and Epstein. The MGM wouldn't comment on whether or not this has anything to do with Epstein files, but I want to note that the investigation began when Copperfield was accused of rape in two thousand and seven, after a woman that met David after attending one of his shows, alleged that he sexually assaulted her on his private Bahamian island called Moshe.k. She said he lured her there on the promise of modeling and promotional work, and the investigation was dropped around January of twenty ten, and Copperfield was never charged in relation to that accusation or any accusation. But given that he was still working at the MGM in two thousand and seven, it's not clear to me if they'd be inclined to cancel his residency. Now, with these resurfaced allegations, I'll call them in connection to Epstein. But that's it. April thirtieth. Last show. So if you ever had an interest, this is your time.

John We've covered the case of the murder of Lesley Palacio back in episode nineteen, and then we covered it again when Eric Rangel Ibarra was finally arrested in Mexico. And if you haven't listened to that episode, you can find it at podcast. Flashback. It's a horrific case. Lesley was murdered on August twenty ninth, twenty twenty, and her body was dumped in the desert by Ibarra. His father helped him move her body into his car so he could dump it in the desert, and his father ended up spending a ridiculously short time in jail for his role in covering up that crime. Ibarra himself spent about four years on the run hiding in Mexico before he was detained there in July of twenty twenty four. He wasn't extradited back here to the US until about a year later. Just recently, though, on March third, Ibarra was brought into a Las Vegas courtroom almost exactly five years after Lesley's murder, and he was then given a week to find an attorney. He was not given any bail, so he remains in custody until his next appearance on March twelfth. Given his history of running to Mexico and his trial is set for August, the newest info here is that since he has been brought back, DNA testing has been performed, as you might imagine, and the results conclusively showed that DNA under Lesley's fingernails is a match for Ibarra. Ibarra was brought to the U.S. illegally as a baby, and he is considered a dreamer with DACA status. But I would expect that all to change after his trial. We're so thankful that he's finally been arrested and will stand trial for this, and we hope that after the trial and sentencing. Leslie Palacios family can find some sort of closure.

Shaun Our thought was, it's going to be a harder time, I think, for Eric to argue that this was some kind of accident.

John I would love to see him take a plea.

Shaun So we'll keep an eye out for that trial. It's supposed to start in August, but we've covered so many trials before. There's always delays. And who knows, maybe he'll accept a plea deal before it even has to get that far. Because I don't want her sisters or her mother to endure that in a courtroom if it can be avoided.

John Right? And we'll provide updates as we get them.

Shaun One of the things I've talked about a couple times on the on the podcast is just the different homicide rates in Las Vegas and how that gets reported and what Metro is paying attention to. And I know I mentioned this before, twenty twenty five Homicide rates. Homicide rates were so low back to pre-pandemic levels, and the final tally was that the number dropped from one fourteen in twenty twenty four to ninety in twenty twenty five, which was a twenty five percent decrease. John, do you want to guess what the most common method of homicide was?

John I'm going to say guns.

Shaun Yes. Guns. Again, the number one reason. About fifty four of those ninety murders were by gunshot. So about sixty percent of them. And as we know, since we started the podcast, I think all our longtime listeners know this domestic violence homicide is the leading cause of homicide in Las Vegas. And even though the murder rate dropped by twenty five percent, the domestic violence rate went up by about ten percent. So we had twenty one domestic violence related murders in twenty twenty four, and we had twenty three and twenty twenty five. And when Metro puts their statistics together, they have different categories that they categorize things under, you know, such as domestic violence or perceived disrespect as one that they use as like a motive. But there's also what they call sexual jealousy, which I think they use that to mean. Like, let's say someone's having an affair and then that's the murder. But I still see that as a domestic violence murder, because it's still a murder involving partners or ex partners. But Metro counts that differently. But if we include those murders, there were six in twenty twenty four and four in twenty twenty five. Then the rates the same. There were twenty seven domestic violence, interpersonal violence, murders in each of those years. But in twenty twenty five, there was also a love triangle murder where there were none in twenty twenty four. I don't know how a love triangle murder would be something different than a sexual jealousy murder, I really don't, um, or different than domestic violence.

John It seems like splitting hairs to me.

Shaun Yeah, it really it really does to me as well.

John Just tweak the numbers.

Shaun Yeah. And again, number one, cause no matter where you list it. And in twenty twenty five, of all the murder victims, there were twenty six women killed, which was down from thirty one in twenty twenty four. And though the white female victims went down significantly, about forty eight percent. So almost half as many as we had had. But the murders of black women, Hispanic women and all other races went up. Black women were murdered forty percent more in twenty twenty five, Hispanic women, twenty five percent more in twenty twenty five. And then for all other races, basically the number tripled. It was there was only one, one person who was labeled other race that was murdered in twenty twenty four. One woman, I should say. But there were three in twenty twenty five. And for men, the rate dropped from eighty three men killed in twenty twenty four down to sixty. And the rates for all the men fell except for other. Where there was just. Which increased just by. There was just one more under that other category. They don't break it down any more than white, black, Hispanic, and other. So I wish I could say what's falling under other. But I don't really know. And so far this year, in twenty twenty six, there have been eighteen murders, which is a slight increase from this point in time. The year before. But five were domestic violence murders. So it is still tracking to be the most common cause. And there was one love triangle murder, which again, I still don't really know how they decide what that is.

John Did you research that one?

Shaun I didn't, it's I can I should do that because I do have a list of the dates of when the murders occurred. And I can dig into if there's any reporting as to what happened. But you know how the reporting is usually like a person was found dead, especially at this early time. It's only it's less two and a half months into the year.

John Yep, yep.

Shaun Eighteen murders. Um, just more than one a week, right?

John The next one I wanted to cover was the high profile murder of Gabriela Perpetuo, who was the girlfriend of a former NFL player named Darren Lee. He played for the Jets and he played for the Chiefs when they won the Super Bowl back in twenty nineteen. Police were called to their house. They lived in Tennessee on February fifth after reports of CPR being performed on someone at the house. When police and paramedics arrived, Gabriela was discovered deceased with horrific and severe injuries, including a broken neck and stab wounds. Obviously the victim of a domestic violence homicide, Lee was arrested right away and charged with first degree murder. And when he was arraigned, he suggested that she might have fallen in the shower, which did not match at all with the description of what had happened to her. The crazy twist here is that Lee had apparently used ChatGPT after the crime to get advice on how to cover up a crime scene. He allegedly asked ChatGPT in his prompts fiancé did her crazy thing again and now she's messed up. I wake up and she has two swollen eyes. I didn't do anything self inflicted. She stabbed herself, slit her eye. But I don't know. She's not waking up or responding. What do I do? And then he wrote, what should I tell my friend to handle? Someone non-responsive but wants to call the police. And then he asked if stab wound like punctures could be caused by a fall. And then he prompted the AI with she got blood all over the place. To be clear, there was strong evidence throughout the house of a violent and prolonged struggle. Like a broken microwave. Bloody drag marks large amounts of blood and broken glass and cleaning supplies. That led the investigators to think that he was busy trying to clean up the scene. He also has a history of domestic violence, having been arrested in twenty twenty three for allegedly assaulting his mom, and he pleaded guilty to assault in twenty twenty five. Gabrielas family has a GoFundMe to help pay for her final expenses, which we will share in the show notes. And it's unclear when that one will proceed to trial, but the prosecutor has said they will be seeking the death penalty. We have one other case that we're going to be talking about involving AI, specifically the Google Gemini AI chatbot, and we're talking about that one in the Swing Shift episode. So if you don't want to miss that, head over to censored.

Shaun Do you think that people don't realize that that kind of information on their computer is like able to be subpoenaed or.

Speaker 3 I don't really.

Shaun Think it goes, I don't. I love how he was like, I'm not asking for me. I'm asking for a friend.

John It is amazing to me that people don't understand the level of computer forensics that is available to investigators.

Shaun Yeah.

John At this time and things like your search history, your, your like all your like your browser history, your, your prompts to your emails. Those are the simplest things. Like those are the things that they get first. That is the lowest hanging fruit. Not even talking about like your call history, your call log, where your phone is pinging.

Shaun Yeah.

John People don't understand that all that stuff is absolutely retrievable. And even after you delete it, they can still get it.

Shaun And I think that's important for anyone, anybody who's living in a violent situation or dealing with someone just to remember that as well, that if you, you know, to be aware of your browser history, we haven't talked about those kinds of safety things, but that someone can look and see what pages you were going through or look and see what you were saying to ChatGPT. Even if it's something like, I think I need to leave my my partner. How do I get like, you just have to be careful. Is that stuff all puts you at risk?

John Absolutely.

Shaun Well, thank you for joining us for another off the cuff episode. And if you have any suggestions for cases or topics that you want us to cover, you can email us at assassins and survivors dot com. And until next time, remember what happens here happens everywhere.

John Thanks for listening. Visit since podcast. Subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and threads at @sinsandsurvivors If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at Questions@SinsandSurvivors.com

Shaun If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website and survivors. Dot com signs and survivors. A Las Vegas True crime podcast is researched, written, and produced by your host, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website at www.sinsandsurvivors.com

John The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.