Joshua Manuel Novelo, 16, male, was found lying in the street late on the night of July 19, 2014, after shots rang out in a North Las Vegas neighborhood. Officers were dispatched around 10:20 p.m. to the 3700 block of Del Rio Drive, near Pecos Road and Las Vegas Boulevard, where they discovered him with a gunshot wound to the head. Medics pronounced the North Las Vegas resident dead at the scene, the streetlights and patrol flashers casting harsh light on a block that had fallen suddenly,
terribly quiet.
Neighbors told investigators the shooter may have been in a vehicle, a chilling detail that suggested a drive-by as detectives began canvassing the area for shell casings, witnesses, and cameras that might have captured a fleeting license plate or the silhouette of a car speeding away. The Clark County coroner later confirmed that Novelo died from a gunshot wound to the head, a stark medical line that did little to soften the shock of a teenager’s life ending at the curb in front of a home.
In the days that followed, detectives with the North Las Vegas Police Department worked the case, but the trail offered few certainties. Early reports noted that no one had been taken into custody and that police were not prepared to release a suspect description. The public was asked to call investigators or Crime Stoppers with tips—any fragment of information that might breathe life into a lead. As of those initial accounts, there were no arrests, and the name of a suspect had not surfaced.
