Troubling Questions in Murder

Revelations that David Cash, who was with Jeremy Strohmeyer on the night he killed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson at a Nevada casino, might have seen more than he told authorities he did raise new questions about the decision not to prosecute Cash.

In order to avoid a possible death sentence, Strohmeyer, 19, pleaded guilty earlier this month to the 1997 kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of the Los Angeles girl. He will spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.

But what of Cash, the good-time Charlie who accompanied Strohmeyer to the Primm, Nev., casino? Cash, now a student at UC Berkeley, apparently shared his buddy’s interest in child pornography and saw Strohmeyer and the child chase each other among the video games during the predawn hours. Then, when Sherrice Iverson ran for cover into the women’s room with Strohmeyer in pursuit, Cash followed.

Two high school classmates of Cash have told authorities that Cash told them he had witnessed Strohmeyer molesting the girl in a restroom stall. Those statements are at odds with Cash’s statements to police, sworn testimony to a grand jury and interviews with The Times in which he said he saw Strohmeyer carry the struggling girl into the stall but left before his pal sexually assaulted and strangled her. Cash has said that later Strohmeyer emerged from the restroom, looked directly at him and said, “I killed her.”

Yet in the days following, Cash kept silent, as did several other people who had reason to believe that Strohmeyer might be the girl’s murderer. Cash’s reason: “I didn’t want to be the person who takes away his last day, his last night of freedom . . . he didn’t do anything to me.” Such statements were rightly greeted with disgust and outrage.

Clark County Dist. Atty. Stewart Bell still contends he has no grounds to prosecute Cash. “Cash should have taken some action,” Bell said, “but not taking action is a moral transgression that is not against the criminal laws of the state of Nevada.” Maybe so, but what about other laws on the Nevada books?

Shouldn’t Cash, whether or not he saw the actual killing, be charged as an accessory after the fact since Cash knew a felony had been perpetrated and still apparently helped Strohmeyer avoid arrest? A charge that Cash obstructed justice would be made even stronger by a friend’s statement that Cash urged him to “just be quiet” when the friend asked about a casino surveillance tape of Strohmeyer and Cash that was broadcast in a TV news report. And why wasn’t Cash prosecuted for perjury, since in an apparent violation of perjury statutes his account to the grand jury didn’t say he’d witnessed the sexual assault?

Bell’s reluctance to move against Cash looks increasingly indefensible; he has some explaining to do.