A mother's concern turned to horror on the afternoon of February 20, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada. When 36-year-old Caucasian female Jessica Russo failed to pick up her children from school and wasn't answering her phone, her mother, Laura Castelle, went to her home on Andorra Street to check on her. Arriving at the residence around 5:15 p.m., she found the door locked. After her boyfriend forced the door open, they made a devastating discovery.
Jessica was found unresponsive on the floor of her bedroom, having sustained multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The investigation into the death of the mother of two quickly led police to a suspect, 36-year-old Mark Michael Ford. Investigators learned that Ford had a violent past; he had been convicted of second-degree murder in 2003 at the age of 15 for fatally stabbing a man during a burglary. After serving 20 years of a life sentence, he had been released on parole. Police identified Ford as the man who had shot his girlfriend, Russo, before embarking on a wider spree of violence.
Five days after killing Russo, Ford murdered 44-year-old John Dorotiak Jr., a man who had been a coworker of Russo's. The extent of the relationship between Ford and Dorotiak, or a clear motive for the killings, has not been publicly released by authorities. In the hours following the second murder, Ford also shot another man in the face; that victim survived. The manhunt for Ford came to an end when police found him deceased in a vehicle from what was believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. There have been no other arrests as police believe Ford acted alone.
