Nye County DA decides not to seek death penalty in Jaggers murder case

Prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty for a Pahrump man accused of torturing and shooting Roy Jaggers, the 27-year-old man found dead in Cathedral Canyon on Aug. 1.

State executions are expensive, emotional and not in the best interest of the community, Nye County District Attorney Chris Arabia said.

Heather Pate, 27, and Kevin Dent, 36, both of Las Vegas, and Brad Mehn, 37, of Pahrump, are charged with murdering Jaggers.

Prosecutors had initially considered the death penalty for Mehn, who is accused of shooting Jaggers multiple times and allegedly torturing him for hours before forcing the man to walk off a cliff.

But Arabia said he was swayed by practical circumstances to seek a lesser punishment for Mehn.

“This is something that would take decades and cost Nye County millions of dollars,” Arabia said. “There is a high emotional cost to the survivors and a big economic cost to the county.”

Executions are rare in Nevada, Arabia added. About 64 inmates are on death row in Nevada, he said, and one of them has been there since 1979. The last execution in Nevada was in 2006, Arabia said, and public opinion here is changing on the death penalty.,

“(The death penalty) almost got banned at the last legislative session and it is probably going to (be banned) in the next couple of sessions, which means the entire thing would be an exercise in futility,” Arabia said.

Securing a death sentence would be largely symbolic, he said.

“And it’s a valuable symbol — it does mean something — it says something for the victim and what we stand for as a community,” Arabia said. “But in the end, I didn’t think it was in the best interests of the community to spend the millions of dollars, the decades and the emotional toll that it would take on the victim’s family for something that is purely symbolic.”

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com.