Las Vegas Murder Victim Had Fled to Avoid Suspect

A 20-year-old Las Vegas woman murdered in May had fled to get away from one of two Fullerton College football players arrested this week in connection with the slaying, investigators and family members said Wednesday.

Arraignment is scheduled today in Orange County Superior Court for the two suspects, Anthony Steven James, 20, and Malcolm Lathion Gray, 19, both of Corona. They were arrested on campus during football practice Tuesday afternoon. If they do not waive extradition on the murder charges in Nevada, authorities there will begin formal extradition proceedings to try them in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas authorities charge that James fatally shot his ex-girlfriend, 20-year-old Amy Tuttle, formerly of Riverside, on May 27 after he and Gray spent the day arguing with her in Tuttle’s Las Vegas apartment. Police believe Gray was in the room and tried to help cover up the shooting, investigators said.

A few months before the slaying, Tuttle, a 1993 graduate of Centennial High School in Corona who had won awards for her poetry, ended a two-year relationship with James, according to police and her family members. She moved to Las Vegas in February to put some distance between them, taking jobs as a swimming pool attendant at Caesars Palace and trainer at a Gold’s Gym, said her father, Timothy Tuttle, a history teacher at Centennial High.

James and Gray, high school classmates of Tuttle, had visited her in Las Vegas about a month before the shooting and fought so loudly that neighbors summoned the apartment building’s security, said Detective Dave Hatch of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.

The day before the shooting, neighbors reported hearing arguing, the sound of crashing objects and then gunfire about 1:20 a.m., police said.

James and Gray said they found Tuttle shot in the head after returning from a convenience store and spotted a man running from the building, police said. It was James and Gray who carried her downstairs and called for medical help.

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Hatch said a neighbor contends he witnessed the shooting from a window but fled the scene because of outstanding arrest warrants against him. The man is now in custody and cooperating with police, Hatch said.

“It’s a senseless thing. They just got to arguing,” Hatch said. Neither James nor Gray had a criminal record, Hatch said.

Fullerton detectives arrested James and Gray--still in their football equipment--in a team training room during practice after they were told to report for blood-pressure checks. Both had joined the team as “walk-on” players, James as a running back and Gray a linebacker; they had not played in any games.

Both had enrolled Monday as new students in a two-year vocational program; James planned to study automotive service and Gray had chosen accounting, college spokesman Al Busch said.

The young woman’s father, Timothy Tuttle, expressed relief that an arrest had been made.

“I’m extremely happy they’re not out there where they can harm anyone else,” he said. “I’ve been living in some fear and concern that they might harm somebody else in my family.”

Fullerton spokesman Busch said the arrests, performed discreetly in the late afternoon on the second day of school, attracted little attention on the college campus.

“I don’t think anybody really realized what’s happened yet,” he said.