Las Vegas Noir

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“Ooh, Las Vegas,” sang the pioneering country-rocker Gram Parsons. “Every time I hit your Crystal City, you know you’re gonna make a wreck out of me.” As Las Vegans, we regularly read about these wrecked lives in newspapers and magazines. We routinely observe people going about their wildly destructive antics on mainstream TV. Often we can’t believe these stories are unfolding in our city. They almost seem like put-ons, elaborate pranks borrowed from atrocious cut-rate screenplays. But there they are, these inhabitants of our city, their mug shots staring us down, making us wonder if what Parsons said is really true — that in Las Vegas your only real friend is the queen of spades.

How crazy does crime get in Las Vegas? Well, consider these tales taken from local papers:

Husband-and-wife champion bodybuilders strangle their personal assistant, torching her body in a red Jaguar in the Vegas desert. Eventually police apprehend the couple in a shopping center, where the killers are drinking root beer and getting manicures.

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