In the warm evening of June 19, 2016, Christine Ralston, a 67-year-old Caucasian woman, was out walking her dog in Las Vegas. Her routine walk turned tragic when a man approached her from behind and delivered a forceful punch to her face. The assault, which occurred near the front office of The Suites on Boulder Highway, was not the first unsettling encounter Ralston had with this individual. Her husband later informed police that the same man had previously banged on their door seeking sex.
During one of those prior incidents, Ralston had defended herself with a bat and contacted the police.
Following the attack, Ralston was transported to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. While she was initially able to recount the events to the police, her condition deteriorated. Detectives attempted to interview her on several occasions at the hospital, but she had fallen unconscious. Her husband conveyed to investigators on July 10, 2016, that her health was declining and doctors were pessimistic about her chances of survival. On July 14, 2016, Christine Ralston died from complications arising from the assault. The Clark County coroner's office subsequently ruled her death a homicide.
Investigators began to piece together the events leading to Ralston's death. Through witness interviews and a review of trespass files, they identified a suspect: Alexander Duwarte. Police had interviewed Duwarte on two separate occasions following arrests for unrelated crimes, during which he denied any involvement in Ralston's death. However, a break in the case came in April when investigators obtained Duwarte's phone records, which placed him in the vicinity of the attack at the time it occurred. Furthermore, two other men came forward and told police that Duwarte had confessed to them that he had beaten a woman who later died at the hospital.
More than a year after the fatal assault, in August 2017, Alexander Duwarte, then 33, was arrested in connection with Christine Ralston's death. He was booked at the Clark County Detention Center and faced an open murder charge for the attack that ultimately claimed the life of the 67-year-old woman.
