Aric Brill, a 16-year-old White male, was shot on the night of February 20, 2009, outside a crowded house party in east Las Vegas near Charleston Boulevard with Sloan/Beesley. Witnesses told police that a group approached Brill and his friends to rob them; as Brill tried to run, he was shot in the back of the head. Another teen was wounded but survived.
Investigators later described the attack as a gang-related robbery in which the assailants fled with a broken cell phone and about twenty dollars.
For years the case stalled. Brill's mother, Karen Brill-Kelley, kept calling detectives, and leads eventually revived the investigation. Court records later showed that, within a month of the killing, one of the men discussed details of the shooting with a fellow jail inmate, information that surfaced years before indictments were brought. In July 2016 a Clark County grand jury indicted four men—Arthur Moore, Nadin Hiko, Devonte Wash and Devon Phillips—on murder, attempted murder, robbery and related charges tied to the shooting outside the party. Authorities reiterated the robbery motive and gang context when announcing the charges.
Accountability emerged in stages. Hiko pleaded guilty in January 2019 to second-degree murder and received a sentence of 10 to 25 years. Moore, identified by prosecutors as the gunman, pleaded guilty and in March 2021 was sentenced on murder and robbery counts to a term of 16 to 40 years. Wash pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and in August 2021 was sentenced to two to five years, with prosecutors calling him the least culpable of the four. Phillips later pleaded guilty as well; by January 2022, all four defendants had been sentenced for their roles in Brill's killing.
Even amid grief, Brill's legacy endured. In the immediate aftermath, his family authorized organ donation; memorials in later years highlighted how multiple recipients were saved by his gifts, and his mother continued public advocacy on behalf of other families seeking justice for slain loved ones.
