Do you know who killed Demond Billingsley? Demond Billingsley, 37, a Black man, spent the summer evening of June 25, 2017 at a small residence on the 4400 block of Wendy Lane in northeast Las Vegas, where friends had gathered around a dominoes table. An argument flared during the game. A man stormed out, returned with a handgun, and opened fire inside the home. Billingsley and 20-year-old Calvin Lawshawn Clark were killed; a third man was shot and survived, and a fourth was spared only because the gunman ran out of ammunition.
Responding officers found the wounded man outside and the two fatally injured men inside. The coroner later ruled both deaths homicides, noting Billingsley suffered a gunshot wound to the back. The shooting location and sequence, the victims' identities, and the coroner's findings anchored a case that began as a dispute over a table game and ended in catastrophe.
Detectives quickly focused on a suspect: 57-year-old Frederick D. Martin Jr. Witness accounts described a man who had taken offense during the game, left, then returned armed and “pumping gunfire” into the room. Two days after the killings, on June 27, Martin was arrested near Victorville, California, on a warrant for two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and battery with a deadly weapon; authorities announced he would be extradited to Las Vegas to face charges. Contemporary reports emphasized how narrowly a fourth person escaped being shot when the weapon clicked empty.
Years later, the case closed in a Clark County courtroom. In January 2023, Martin pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, and battery with a deadly weapon. In March 2023, a judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2017 triple shooting that left Billingsley and Clark dead and another man wounded, drawing a legal line under the violence that began over a friendly game and tore through a Las Vegas neighborhood.
