The colleagues of murdered Las Vegas journalist Jeff German have spoken out to reveal how they used the newsroom’s investigative skills to help track down his alleged killer.
Mr German, a 69-year-old reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was found dead from multiple stab wounds outside his home near Vegas Drive and Tenaya Way on Saturday morning. He had been dead for several hours.
On Wednesday, Clark County Public Administrator Rob Telles was arrested and charged with Mr German’s murder following a brief SWAT standoff at his home.
At a press conference on Thursday, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Captain Dori Koren praised the efforts of Mr German’s colleagues at the Review-Journal for providing invaluable assistance to the murder investigation.
The five-person team has now revealed the extent of their involvement in the case where they zeroed in on Mr Telles’ aggressive tweets towards the journalist, captured the suspect vehicle on Google Maps outside the official’s home and staked out his property to confirm their suspicions.
Reporters at the local paper told The Daily Beast that they were just doing what their colleague “would want us to do” – using the skills that they learned on the job with Mr German to unmask his killer.
“We’re just acting on instinct right now, aggressively trying to find out what happened,” said investigative reporter Briana Erickson.
Ms Erickson said that she was celebrating her birthday with a Labor Day weekend to Utah when she first received the devastating news of Mr German’s death.
The paper broke the news of his murder late on Saturday night after editor Rhonda Prast connected the information about his passing with a police press release about a murder in the area.
At first, the team had only been told that Mr German was found dead outside of his home that morning. But Ms Prast noticed that an address on an unnamed homicide case matched the address for their colleague’s home.
Ms Erickson said she drove back to Las Vegas to join her team in helping uncover what had happened.
While the newsroom was in disbelief, they began to think about the possibility that Mr German’s murder was connected to his work. The highly-respected journalist had an illustrious career exposing organised crime and corruption in Sin City.
The journalists quickly dismissed the idea it was tied to this work uncovering organised crime.
“You know, the mob stuff was from decades ago, and that just wasn’t really plausible,” said Ms Erickson.
Soon, some of the team began looking more closely at Mr Telles. In the months leading up to Mr German’s murder, he had been investigating allegations of bullying and workplace hostility in the county official’s office.
Mr German also exposed the married father-of-three’s alleged affair with a staffer, releasing footage of what appeared to show the pair having sex in a parked car. Following the investigative journalist’s reporting, Mr Telles fired off several angry tweets towards the journalist.
Then he lost his reelection bid.
“*Wife hears rustling in the trash* Her: ‘Honey, is there a wild animal in the trash?’ Me: ‘No, dear. Looks like it’s @JGermanRJ going through our trash for his 4th story on me.’ Oh, Jeff,” he tweeted on 18 June, days before the election, with a laughing- crying emoji. “Oh shoot. I left a pizza box and sushi containers in the trash. In the next article, I’m going to have mob and yakuza ties.”
The Twitter storm continued as Mr Telles accused Mr German of being a “typical bully” who couldn’t take his own medicine.
“Looking forward to lying smear piece #4 by @JGermanRJ. #onetrickpony I think he’s mad that I haven’t crawled into a hole and died,” he tweeted days later.
On Monday, investigators released photos of the suspect in Mr German’s murder dressed in an orange, long-sleeved construction shirt and a big, wide-brimmed straw sun hat, which largely hid the individual’s face.
The suspect was also wearing blue jeans, white sneakers and dark gloves and appeared to be carrying a dark-coloured duffle-style bag on a strap over their shoulder.
Police said the bizarrely-dressed suspect appeared to be stalking the area prior to the brutal slaying and said they believed the perpetrator and victim had been involved in an “altercation” outside Mr German’s home on Friday morning.
Surveillance footage of the suspect’s vehicle – a 2007 to 2017 red or maroon GMC Yukon Denali with chrome handles and a sunroof – was also released on Tuesday.
Now suspicious about Mr Telles, Ms Erickson explained that the news team searched the elected official’s address on Google Maps in a hunt for clues. There, they found a photo of a vehicle matching the description of the suspect vehicle parked in Mr Telles’ driveway and passed the information to police.
Reporters then began staking out the Democrat’s house to try to catch a glimpse of the vehicle, the Daily Beast reported. They spotted – and photographed – Mr Telles washing the maroon car on his driveway that day.
On Wednesday, LVMPD executed a search warrant on the suspect’s home and seized the vehicle. Mr Telles was taken in for questioning but was later released.
When he returned to his home a few hours later, reporters from the Las Vegas Review-Journal were waiting for him and questioned him about whether he had killed their colleague.
“Did you do this?” they asked in a video posted online. Mr Telles gave no response.
Breaking news reporter Brett Clarkson and photographer Kevin Cannon continued to stake out the suspect’s home and captured the moment law enforcement returned to arrest Mr Telles for murder on Wednesday night.
Mr Telles refused to exit the property and a standoff ensued. Ms Erickson told the Daily Beast she feared they wouldn’t get justice for their colleague at that moment.
“I just was thinking, ‘Is this person going to harm themselves, and are we not going to have justice for Jeff?’” she said.
“Of course, he’s innocent until proven guilty. But, you know, the behaviour’s just very alarming.”
SWAT teams then entered the home to find Mr Telles suffering from self-inflicted injuries. He was taken to hospital for treatment before being charged with Mr German’s murder.
Police said that DNA recovered from the murder scene belongs to Mr Telles and that a pair of bloodied sneakers and a straw hat matching those in the surveillance footage were found at the suspect’s home. The shoes and the hat had been cut up in an attempt to destroy evidence, police said.
Journalist Michael Scott Davidson said that the team was just doing the job that their colleague did so well.
“We’re here to break news, get it right, because that’s what Jeff would want us to do,” he told the Daily Beast. “Jeff was so good at what he did, but he came in here every day like he was still trying to earn his stripes.”
Now, with Mr Telles behind bars, his colleagues can finally start the grieving process.
“We’ve finally been able to breathe,” Ms Erickson told the Daily Beast.
It has also raised greater awareness among them about the threats they face uncovering the truth through their work.
“Any one of us would have reported this story. Any one of us could have, meaning any story that you pursue could potentially lead to circumstances that are completely unforeseen while you’re reporting it,” said Ms Erickson. “So I guess it’s just kind of puts me on alert, puts all of us on alert here that this is a possibility, which truthfully has never really crossed my mind before.”
