By Kelsey Givens
A man accused of attempting to murder his daughter’s boyfriend last week appeared in justice court Wednesday to be formally arraigned on charges against him in the case.
Randall D. Phelps, 68, was arrested on Feb. 6 for attempted murder and battery with a deadly weapon with substantial bodily harm after he allegedly shot 35-year-old Benjamin Appleby in the head and abdomen outside a home on Camelot Court.
During his arraignment hearing, Phelps and his attorney Tom Gibson were read the charges against the 68-year-old in Pahrump Justice Court before dates were set for Phelps to return for pre-trial and preliminary hearings in the case.
Gibson said as of Wednesday afternoon he had not received all of the information, or discovery, in the case from the district attorney’s office and as such could not comment further on Phelps’ claims of self-defense or other aspects of the case.
The attorney did say he met with Phelps for the first time the day of the arraignment and planned to do so again before the week was out to prepare for their upcoming court dates.
Phelps was originally taken into police custody last week after 911 dispatchers received a call from the suspect stating he had just shot Appleby outside a residence located at 6531 Camelot Ct.
Phelps allegedly told them Appleby had been fighting with his daughter and that he had “threatened him” so he fired a warning shot and then fired directly at Appleby. Though he was the one who called police to report the shooting, a declaration of arrest in the case notes Phelps was very uncooperative with dispatchers and officers once they arrived on scene, continuing to hang up on 911 operators and refusing to comply with deputies’ commands.
When police pulled up to the driveway of the property just after 5 p.m., officers reportedly found Appleby lying on the ground, bleeding and unresponsive, with gunshot wounds to the abdomen and right temple.
Appleby was promptly transported to the trauma center at University Medical Center in Las Vegas for emergency treatment of his life-threatening injuries.
Further details about the events leading up to the shooting emerged after NCSO detectives served a search warrant on the Pahrump Valley Times Tuesday morning looking for contact information for someone posting detailed comments about the crime — details that hadn’t been made public — on the paper’s website. Detectives believed based on the information being posted, that there may have been a second suspect in the case.
Upon further investigation, it turned out to be a member of Appleby’s family who was privy to details about the crime and who went onto the newspaper’s website to rail against claims that Appleby was shot in self-defense.
According to that poster, when Phelps returned home to the address prior to the incident, the injuries he told police he saw on his daughter, which he said he believed were caused by Appleby, as the two regularly were involved in domestic issues, were actually caused by a moped accident the daughter and Appleby had been in a short time before Phelps came home. This fact, the poster claimed, was confirmed to the family by detectives.
In an interview following the incident, Phelps told police after noticing those injuries he walked back to his trailer, and shortly after he heard arguing coming from the other trailer on the property. He said he grabbed his pistol and walked up to the driveway where he claimed Appleby threatened to “beat him till he was dead.”
Phelps said he then fired a warning shot at Appleby and when the younger male “kept coming” at him, he fired additional shots, wounding Appleby. Police do not believe this version of events.
The poster wrote Phelps’ claim of self-defense was false, stating Phelps actually “confronted Appleby from a distance away with a gun in hand and started shooting.”
After Appleby had been shot in the abdomen, the poster stated Phelps walked up to him while he was on the ground and shot him point-blank in the side of the head, execution style.
Four spent casings and an intact round were reportedly found spread out over several feet on the driveway during NCSO detectives’ investigation, in addition to a large pool of blood consistent with where the victim was located.
Phelps was later taken to Desert View Hospital for treatment of minor injuries sustained not in a quarrel with Appleby, but allegedly in resisting deputies after he refused to comply with police commands when an attempt was made to detain him for questioning.
Based on the totality of the investigation completed the night of the shooting, NCSO detectives said they determined the shooting was in fact not an act of self-defense or defense of another as Phelps alleged.
After being released from the hospital, Phelps was booked into custody in the Nye County Detention Center where he remained in custody as of Thursday morning.
His bail is set at $50,000 and he is set to return to court for a pre-trial hearing on Feb. 27 at 9 a.m.
Appleby remains in the hospital, a bullet lodged in his brain. He is lucid and was able to provide police with a full description of the shooting despite his serious injuries.
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- Randall Phelps
Where are all the comments about shooting first and asking questions later? Funny how quiet the comments are when the whole story comes out!
Here are some suggestions for a more appropriate title to this article: “Commenter on PVT article more informed than article itself” or “PVT writes the most misleading, poorly researched article of all time, doesn’t apologize to victim or his family”.
That’s a pretty cheap shot. What would you like us do? We present the best information we have at the time. We revisit issues and present fuller stories as new details emerge. Unless you are 5 years old, you should know that’s generally how news works. Of course, maybe you just like taking cheap shots. Go ahead, nobody’s forcing you to read our stories.
Oh my, but lets remember who the “professionals” are suppose to be PVT! Jeez, you lost my respect after the above comment.
If your question is “What would you like us TO do?” Then my answer is simple: be journalists that research, or at least ATTEMPT to research both sides of one story, before you post a half-assed, one-sided “story” as quick as possible in order to sensationalize news. Of course, that’s a pretty tall order in a time where reporting news fast is more important than reporting news correctly, accurately, and responsibly. In the original article, it seems all of your effort was made only to hear the Phelp’s side to this story. Did you attempt to contact anyone that may have been able to speak on behalf of Appleby? Could it be that the PVT wanted to present a story that justified gun ownership and use in the name of a father protecting his daughter in lieu of finding ANYTHING out about the ACTUAL events of the case?
Don’t speak to me about taking cheap shots and turn around and call me a 5 year old in the same breath. You couldn’t force me to rely on the PVT as a source of ACCURATE news reporting, thankfully the people of Pahrump have more reliable outlets these days.
Okay. We let you have your say again. I will try to be courteous and explain one last time. A shooting occurs…cops are everywhere…it’s at night….witnesses are corralled…police are busy with their investigations, they are in interrogations….the victim and their family are at a Las Vegas hospital. We ask questions of ALL the sources we know who might have information. The bulk of what we get in the first few hours and days are ONLY what the police are willing to provide, ie press releases, arrest reports, etc. You expect us to have the full story in the first 24, 48 hours? Should we wait until we have the full story to write ANYTHING at all, to alert the public that a man has been shot? When we do get the full story, we print it…and people like you suddenly jump on us for doing our job, because, what, you have nothing better to do? The reason we got a fuller account of the story as soon as we did (we often have to wait until a case goes before a judge) was because the police served a search warrant on the Pahrump Valley Times. Why? Because a commenter, related to the victim it turns out, was posting information that NO ONE knew except two detectives, their boss, and the family member in the hospital room with the victim when the detectives interviewed him.
We are not psychics. We also don’t make it a habit to interfere with ongoing police investigations. We also don’t enjoy driving to UMC, barging into ICU units and telling vctims who have bullets in their heads to SPEAK NOW, so that “Interesting” can get the full story…
Why don’t you just thank us for the service we provide you and your neighbors and go about your day like the rest of us. If you think we do such a lousy job, just change the channel.
Comment removed. Stephens Media owns this website and will monitor it as we see fit. – PVT
I’m 65 and if some punk is coming at me with a threat and I had a gun pointed at him, he should know what will happen if I pull the trigger. If he keeps threatening me I will squeeze that trigger. On the other paw Kunzi needs to be voted out.
Laslo, I am 70 and agree with that, unfortunately in this case, that wasn’t the case: “The poster wrote Phelps’ claim of self-defense was false, stating Phelps actually “confronted Appleby from a distance away with a gun in hand and started shooting.”
After Appleby had been shot in the abdomen, the poster stated Phelps walked up to him while he was on the ground and shot him point-blank in the side of the head, execution style.”
As for Kunzi, I think he is doing a great job.
Have a nice weekend.
I guess he wanted to make sure he was dead.
I disagree with you about Kunzi.
Appleby was trying to get away, was never a threat. Phelps went into the house to get a gun came out shooting from across the yard. That is premeditated attempted murder…Anywhere. And what about the kids playing on the street, the cars driving by? But he must have been a good shooter because no one else was harmed. The cops had to restrain him after he shot someone in self defense….Yeah right. He wouldn’t talk to dispatch nor comply with police orders. And who is the one needing to be shot? Come on now. And if he was in fear he should have never left his house and simply called the police if it took three days for them to come who cares he would be safe and secure in his trailer. Oh and the daughter, why was she still hanging with her boyfriend if she was so scared?
I smell a whole bunch of lies.
And once he was shot, and lying on the ground, he, even if the claim from the attempted murderer is that he was a threat before, he wasn’t, couldn’t, have been a threat at that point. Hence premeditated attempted murder IMHO…
As Paul Harvey would have said, “Now, the rest of the story”. What came out in the initial article was from one side, the person arrested. Now the Sheriff’s Office gets to the bottom of the situation with information from all sides and we find the shooter was less in forthcoming with his side of the story.
I suspect it will take a bit more time to sort through all the minutia of this tragedy and get the full picture of what happened. Time will tell.
OK I pretty much agree with all of you. However as a former Journalist and Editor I disagree with the headline. The Cops don’t determine things they arrest
Based on the law.
Speaking of Paul Harvey…
God said “I need a tweeker with no teeth and no brains. A bible thumpin, gun toten Republican voting idiot with an IQ of about 75″ So God made a Pahrumpian.