Father-of-Five in Vegas for His Brother's Wedding Is Fatally Sucker-Punched by a Stranger: Police
Authorities in Las Vegas say a single punch delivered by a complete stranger ended the life of a 45-year-old husband and father of five on April 30, PEOPLE confirms.
According to a statement from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, 27-year-old James Beach was charged Sunday with a single count of open murder for allegedly killing Luis Campos with a fatal blow to the head.
Police say a second man was involved in the altercation and was questioned by police, but he will not be charged.
According to investigators, Campos was felled shortly after 1:30 a.m. that Sunday as Campos and his younger brother, Drake Garibay, were standing in line outside a Las Vegas bar.
The two brothers were in town from California for a bachelor party, reportedly for another brother’s wedding, police said.
While waiting to get into the bar, Campos and Garibay were allegedly approached by two men - one tall, one short.
“The taller guy walked right up to my brother’s face and said something like, What are you looking at?’ ” Garibay told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, alleging, “He just struck my brother once. The whole thing was like, three [or] four seconds long.”
“He didn’t even get a chance to say anything,” Garibay said. “It wasn’t even like they squared up. My brother turned his head, he didn’t say one word.”
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Garibay said his brother collapsed and fell to the pavement and the two male suspects fled, according to police.
Garibay told the Review-Journal that Campos could hardly breathe after the assault. “I just held his head,” he said. “I just held his limp head in my hand.”
Campos died a few days later at local University Medical Center.
Beach, the murder suspect, has yet to enter a plea to the charges and has not hired an attorney who could comment on his behalf. He is being held on an unspecified amount of bail.
Campos’ relatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to two GoFundMe pages, he has three teenage children and two younger kids under 3 years old, and he was to be the best man at their brother’s upcoming wedding.
“He got robbed of his life,” Campos’ mother told local TV station KTNV.
Brother Adam Garibay said, “These guys knew what they were doing.”