Paula McGuire, 63, female, was killed on August 10, 2021, in a triple shooting at a residence near the 200 block of West Chicago Avenue in Las Vegas. Authorities later clarified that McGuire had initially been misidentified to local media as 53-year-old Pauline Wilson; after verifying fingerprints, FBI records, and speaking with relatives, the coroner corrected the record and confirmed McGuire’s identity.
Another woman, 57-year-old Dawn Paynter, also died in the attack, while a man staggered out of the home with multiple gunshot wounds but survived.
Detectives determined the violence erupted during a dispute over unpaid rent between the tenants and the homeowner, 78-year-old Arnoldo Sanchez, who rented rooms in the house. According to witness accounts and the arrest report, Sanchez argued with the tenants, retrieved a firearm, and shot all three; a witness told police he was “smiling and laughing” as he fired. Officers responding around 12:25 a.m. found one woman dead in the yard, the wounded man emerging from the doorway, and—after a SWAT response—the second woman dead inside.
Sanchez surrendered after a brief standoff and was booked into the Clark County Detention Center. He was held without bail on two counts of open murder with a deadly weapon and one count of attempted murder with a deadly weapon. Early court appearances in August 2021 kept him detained pending further proceedings. The surviving male tenant was identified in subsequent coverage as Sefrino Reyes, who suffered approximately nine gunshot wounds but was expected to live.
In the weeks that followed, the Clark County coroner issued the formal correction: the woman initially named publicly as Pauline Wilson was in fact Paula McGuire. That clarification, issued January 8, 2022, superseded the September 2021 identification and remains the official account of the victim’s identity in the case tied to the West Chicago Avenue rent dispute.
