Spencer McDonald appears in court on June 28, 2023. (Screengrab via KTNV)
New details have emerged as part of the investigation into a man who allegedly murdered three people inside a Las Vegas apartment this month.
Spencer McDonald, 30, currently stands accused of three counts of open murder, and one count of attempted murder, according to Clark County Jail records reviewed by Law&Crime. An arrest report alleges he spent significant time living with two of the victims’ corpses.
And among the dead, is McDonald’s own octogenarian grandmother.
Suspicions that something was not right at apartment number 2005 in the complex on West Flamingo Road were first raised by a friend of Dina Vail, 80, when she failed to show up for the ballet class she taught on Monday, the report says. Vail’s friend arrived to pick her up, knocked repeatedly at the door where a package sat un-retrieved, and heard no answer – assuming she had caught a ride with someone else.
When the elderly woman didn’t show at all, the dance studio owner, whose name is redacted for privacy reasons in the report, sent messages to his friend – along with Vail’s boyfriend, Andrew “AJ” Graden, 43, and her grandson – all of whom lived together.
Still, no answer came.
The friend and studio owner regularly transported Vail to her classes and doctor’s appointments, the report notes. So, he contacted another member of the family who did not live in the apartment. They wrote back: they had not recently heard from Vail either. The third family member later wrote back to the studio owner again, telling him McDonald had messaged to say that Vail “took the day off.”
A welfare check was requested the next day.
Two apartment maintenance workers were the first to arrive, the 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 surviving maintenance worker] then saw what he believed to be blood on the walls.”
Immediately after registering their horror, the report says, the workers saw a man rush out of “the spare bedroom” wielding a hammer.
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 number 2005 to retrieve his cellular phone, “which he had dropped,” according to the report. By then, Brassard was dead inside the living room.
Officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department arrived around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday to find the surviving maintenance worker in the leasing office – after receiving various calls about “a white male armed with a large pipe attacking people” and a report about an injured man who was bleeding from his back, according to the report. When police first saw McDonald, he was allegedly “armed with a large bludgeoning device known as a ‘mace”” and gave flight on foot, briefly, before he was taken into custody.
During an interview, Vail’s grandson allegedly admitted to the crimes.
“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,” the report 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.”
The defendant also admitted to killing Brassard during the welfare check, the LVMPD report says.
Police believe the defendant used “a large chef’s knife and sword,” both of which were allegedly found inside the apartment, covered in blood, to finish off at least some of his victims, the report says. When police asked him why he did it, McDonald did not have an answer.
The defendant made an initial court appearance on Wednesday. He is being held without bond in the Clark County Detention Center. He is due back in court on July 3 and will be assigned a public defender.
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