How slain Las Vegas journalist Jeff German might have helped seize his personal killer

Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German was a person who lived for his job. And because it seems, might have died for it. In September 2022, he was stabbed to loss of life by an assailant exterior his residence.

German was an area legend – famend for his reporting on notorious mobsters, crooked politicians and murderers.

“How large an inventory of individuals might need needed Jeff useless?” “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant requested Glenn Cook dinner, the Evaluation-Journal’s government editor. “That is a line of those who runs from right here to Los Angeles,” Cook dinner replied. “This man’s written about horrible individuals, who’ve carried out terrible issues for over 40 years. The worst sorts of individuals.”

They got here up with a brief checklist of people that might have threatened him. A type of was Clark County public administrator Robert Telles. German had written 4 articles about Telles’ alleged hostile habits on the workplace.

German first realized in regards to the accusations of a poisonous office from 4 feminine Clark County staff. “[Telles] was a horrible, a horrible human being,” one of many girls, Rita Reid, instructed Van Sant. “Monster is the proper phrase.”

“Jeff German was guided by an innate judgment of right and wrong,” mentioned Cook dinner. “If he knew somebody was participating in prison exercise, unethical exercise, inappropriate habits … he needed to do this story, he needed to carry it to mild.”

After German spoke with the 4 girls, they had been relieved to seek out out that German would tackle their story. “He did one thing, and he fought for us,” Goodwin mentioned. “And he’s one hundred pc our hero.”

They might have by no means imagined that simply 5 months after assembly him, their hero could be useless.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JEFF GERMAN

Briana Erickson: On September 2nd, 2022, it was a boiling sizzling late summer time day in Las Vegas. And folks had been preparing for the Labor Day weekend. … It was late morning when in broad daylight, one thing horrible occurred.

As investigative journalists for the Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal Briana Erickson and Rhonda Prast had seen quite a lot of unhealthy individuals do quite a lot of unhealthy issues. However nothing got here near the Machiavellian plot to homicide their good friend and colleague, Jeff German.

Rhonda Prast: Jeff German was at his home, on trip. He’d gone out to get one thing to eat. He got here again, shut his storage door. 

Rhonda Prast: You may see within the surveillance video from throughout the road that … Somebody, an assailant, got here into his yard, went to the left facet of his home, went contained in the gate, shut the gate.

Briana Erickson: After which we see Jeff, moments later, opening his storage door and he was immediately ambushed when he turned the nook to the place that individual was mendacity in wait. … Within the video, you possibly can sort of see a wrestle, however German in the end falls to the bottom, and he by no means will get up.

Peter Van Sant: What occurred to him in that assault? 

Rhonda Prast: Jeff was stabbed … He was stabbed seven occasions, 4 occasions within the neck, three within the torso. 

Peter Van Sant: Seven stab wounds … did that recommend what sort of a killing this was?

Rhonda Prast: To me, this was a really private assault. To stab somebody in such a short while viciously seven occasions, with no warning.

A involved neighbor discovered German’s physique hidden behind some bushes 24 hours later.

911 OPERATOR: 911 emergency … Do you want police, hearth, medical?

NEIGHBOR: I’ve a neighbor throughout the road from me. He is laying within the facet yard, um, I consider he is useless. He is bought blood over him.

Rhonda Prast: It was only a horrible factor to know that he was mendacity there, and we puzzled whether or not he might have been saved. However medical specialists instructed us later … that he possible died inside a minute or two. 

It was a small mercy for a person who had spent his life combating for the underdog.

Rhonda Prast: On the base, he simply needed to assist individuals and defend individuals you already know … and expose wrongdoing.

From the beginning, German was capturing for large sport. And when he got here from Wisconsin within the Seventies las Vegas was the Serengeti. Mark Fierro, a TV reporter on the time, grew to become a lifelong good friend and trusted supply.

Mark Fierro: Jeff German on the outset was a, a … reporter who caught a very powerful beat in Las Vegas of his day that was organized crime.

Then a reporter for the Las Vegas Solar, German took on one of many largest, meanest mobsters on the strip — Tony Spilotro, an influence participant for the Chicago Mob, who was performed by Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s movie, “On line casino.”

German talked about Spilotro within the podcast “Mobbed Up” a couple of yr earlier than he died:

JEFF GERMAN | “Mobbed Up” podcast: He had a popularity of being a brutal killer, but he was by no means convicted of a single homicide  … He had the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen.

JEFF GERMAN | “Mobbed Up” podcast: In my tales, I bought used to calling Spilotro by his avenue title – Tony the Ant. He hated that and it typically left me on the receiving finish of Spilotro’s nasty stares and his menacing matches of anger.

Mark Fierro: The irony of all of that is — is that Jeff … was not a tall man, was not a powerful man, however he toughed it out and he went toe to toe with these guys yr in and yr out. And a few of these guys had been harmful guys.

Strive as they did, they could not scare him, says Erickson.

Briana Erickson: After his tires had been slashed and a few spooky issues had been taking place to him, he instructed a mob affiliate in a bar to name off his canines. Then he bought punched within the face. He later described that as a badge of honor.

JEFF GERMAN | “Mobbed Up” podcast: A few hours later with 4 stitches below my lip, I had a battle story to inform.

Because the mob slowly misplaced its grip on Vegas, German constructed a profession exposing soiled enterprise, authorities corruption and crime. Prast, the previous assistant managing editor for investigations on the Evaluation-Journal, labored with him for 3 years.

Rhonda Prast: He stored digging and digging and digging, and he was just like the canine, the little canine — that may take a chew of your pants and would not let go. You understand, he was simply so laser centered on persevering with to go deeper and deeper and deeper right into a story.

That tenacity helped him expose the reality in tales that might have remained within the shadows. He was one of many few journalists, alongside together with his colleague David Ferrara, to report on the Susan Winters case — a lady whose dad and mom doubted the suicide ruling of their daughter’s loss of life.

Mark Fierro: And Jeff began placing items collectively. … working with the legal professional for the household … that the way in which that she killed herself was so unseemly that it simply did not add up. … And as soon as he began … he began pulling on that thread, after which he began pulling on a rope after which it became a series.

That chain became a sequence of tales that focused the husband. Seems Winters died from ingesting a deadly mixture of painkillers and antifreeze. The husband, who was charged with homicide, in the end pleaded responsible to voluntary manslaughter and was despatched to jail.

As hard-charging and public as German was in his work life, the lifelong bachelor was notoriously personal about his private life.

Mark Fierro: He was all the time again to enterprise, again to enterprise. This man was born to be a reporter.

The whole newsroom rallied collectively. His colleagues had no thought who did this or why, however they had been decided to do what German would have carried out: discover out.

WHO WANTED JEFF GERMAN DEAD?

The Evaluation-Journal employees was in mourning. Their sorrow — playing cards and flowers— in full show on German’s desk.

Briana Erickson: It is a reminder that … this staff will not be gonna be the identical with out him … However we will keep on the way in which he would need us to.

And that meant doing what he would have carried out. The employees began tugging on threads and trying to find clues, working nonstop on some of the necessary tales of their careers: who killed Jeff German?

Rhonda Prast: Instantly, I began pondering in my head, all proper, who had threatened Jeff in any means within the final 5 months? Who might have presumably carried out this?

Govt editor Glenn Cook dinner requested Prast to provide you with a brief checklist of individuals to think about.

Rhonda Prast: One of many names I gave him was Robert Telles.

Peter Van Sant: And who’s Robert Telles?

Rhonda Prast: He was a Clark County elected official, in control of the Public Administrator’s Workplace, which handles estates of people that had been deceased.

One of many property coordinators in Telles’ workplace, Aleisha Goodwin, had reached out to German in March 2022. She had filed a proper criticism with the County Workplace of Range on behalf of herself and a few colleagues claiming Telles harassed, bullied, and discriminated in opposition to them.

Rita Reid: He was a horrible, a horrible human being … Monster is the proper phrase.

However Goodwin says, the county did nothing.

Aleisha Goodwin: It was all the time, “he is an elected official. There’s nothing we will do.”

German agreed to listen to what Goodwin and her colleagues, Noraine Pagdanganan, Rita Reid and Jessica Coleman, needed to say.

Jessica Coleman: And when he lastly talked to us and he allow us to inform what had occurred to us and he mentioned, “No, I will look into this.” … I believe that is the one factor that gave us sufficient power to maintain going.

In line with the ladies, the difficulty started virtually instantly after Telles took workplace in January 2019. Reid, a supervisor, was his second in command and a 12-year veteran of the workplace.

Rita Reid: He got here in very abruptly into the workplace and he slammed his palms down on my desk (slams palms on desk) with a — with an actual loud bang.

Peter Van Sant: Like a (slaps palms on desk).

Rita Reid: Oh, sure, completely. And he leaned ahead, and he mentioned, “we’re ripping off the bandage. You not supervise anybody, nobody stories to you. … All of them report back to me.” And he circled and he walked out. And I simply sat there shocked.  

The ladies say they had been ordered to not converse to one another within the workplace.

Jessica Coleman It felt harmful to also have a hiya, good morning, dialog with coworkers in passing.

If caught, the implications may very well be extreme, says Goodwin. She remembers getting known as into Telles’ workplace after he noticed her and two different girls speaking

Aleisha Goodwin: We walked into his workplace, and he mentioned, “sit down and shut up. You are not gonna speak. … I am gonna speak.” … And he simply bought this look on his face, he sits again, and he pointed at Noraine and mentioned, “f*** you.”

Peter Van Sant: What was it wish to be in that room … receiving that?

Noraine Pagdanganan: It was scary … as a result of … I … Didn’t need to upset him as a result of I knew how he may very well be.

Regardless of years of service, all the ladies say they feared for his or her jobs. And Coleman,  who safeguarded the property of the deceased in a caged room, says she feared for her bodily security. She says Telles would typically are available in and threaten her.

Jessica Coleman: There was an occasion the place he bought in my face and, you already know, he is yelling and I am form of backed up in opposition to, um, the cage door.

Peter Van Sant: He was making an attempt to bodily intimidate you?

Jessica Coleman: Sure, sure. … He would carry his chairs up actually shut and — and demand that you just actually concentrate and look him within the eye whereas he instructed you horrible issues.

A type of horrible issues, says Coleman, virtually did her in. Alone within the cage collectively, she says, Telles began by saying that he observed she by no means talked to anybody within the workplace, a weird remark contemplating his no-talking rule.

Jessica Coleman: “If you happen to maintain taking place this highway, you are going to be like our circumstances and also you’re simply going to die alone, and no person goes to seek out you.” … and I sat there and cried. Um, after which after that … it is laborious to confess. (Crying) Then I began, um, pondering the perfect factor I might do could be to sacrifice myself for the women.

Jessica Coleman: (Crying) And I had truly picked out a spot, um, that I used to be going to hold myself within the corridor in view of the door, as a result of he would all the time come by and — and ensure I used to be working. And I assumed this will probably be good. If they’ve to seek out me this fashion, then the county should do one thing.

Mercifully, Coleman realized that was not the answer to the issue.

However they got here up with one other plan. The ladies believed Telles was having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate within the workplace named Roberta. Roberta, they claimed, used that relationship to imagine energy and privilege past her job title.   

Peter Van Sant: Is there any doubt in your thoughts that the 2 of them had been having a romantic affair?

Rita Reid: No.

Aleisha Goodwin: No.

Jessica Coleman: Completely not.

Peter Van Sant: None in any respect

Jessica Coleman: No as a result of we —

However they wanted proof. In order that they determined to comply with them.

Aleisha Goodwin: We had seen a sample, quick costume day. In the event that they went the identical path, we knew that we would have liked to go.

It was all the time to the identical place, says Goodwin — a parking storage in a close-by mall. The alleged lovers would park subsequent to one another.

Aleisha Goodwin: We began to take footage and we began to video.

Peter Van Sant: So how did you place yourselves the place you can get some video?

Rita Reid: Very fastidiously.

Peter Van Sant: In a automobile?

Aleisha Goodwin: Typically in a automobile. Typically we might get out of our automobile. There have been — there have been sort of some cutouts and pillars the place you can get angles right here and there. … And we simply tried to maneuver round and to get the perfect that we might.

In line with the ladies, the alleged lovers would in the end find yourself within the again seat of Roberta’s automobile.

Peter Van Sant: Roberta has mentioned that they might sit within the again seat as a result of she needed to have the ability to make eye contact with him as they had been having —

Jessica Coleman: Mm-hmm.

Peter Van Sant: — necessary workplace discussions.

Aleisha Goodwin: Yeah.

Jessica Coleman: Sure.

Aleisha Goodwin: That’s what she mentioned.

Peter Van Sant: OK. And your response to that?

Aleisha Goodwin: Nicely, that final video we bought, we had just a little higher recorder. You possibly can see the — the shadows. And you may see these heads going collectively.

Rita Reid: We felt it was so inappropriate.

However this was the shot they believed was probably the most telling: Roberta leaving the automobile and smoothing down her costume.

Rita Reid: It was so unbelievable, and it simply took a second to — to digest that it might — I imply, at that second it was like so actual.

After seeing the movies, German requested Roberta about them. She responded, “I’ve not had an inappropriate relationship with him.”  The Evaluation-Journal printed the story.

Peter Van Sant (reads aloud): Let me learn the lead on this first article:

“The Clark County Public Administrator’s Workplace has been mired in turmoil and inside dissension over the previous two years with allegations of emotional stress, bullying and favoritism, resulting in secret videotaping of the boss and a co-worker exterior the workplace.”

Peter Van Sant: That story went everywhere in the state of Nevada and earlier than lengthy, everywhere in the nation.

Peter Van Sant: As this settled in, are you pondering mission completed otherwise you pondering what’s gonna occur to us subsequent?

Aleisha Goodwin: Each.

Jessica Coleman: Yeah, the fear did not cease. The fear virtually simply bought worse. It simply modified face.

THERE WERE WARNING SIGNS

German’s story with its allegations of turmoil, bullying and hostility had a swift and searing impact on the Public Administrator’s Workplace. The county lastly despatched in an out of doors marketing consultant, and Robert Telles misplaced his bid for re-election within the major, paradoxically, to his arch enemy: Rita Reid.

However German wasn’t via with Telles but. He wrote three extra scathing items chronicling the autumn of the as soon as up-and-coming younger Democrat, and one other story was within the works.

However German didn’t survive to write down it.

NEWS REPORT: Jeff German was discovered stabbed to loss of life exterior his residence within the Northwest Valley …   

When information of German’s homicide broke, the ladies German had fought for had been overcome with grief, but additionally dread — afraid of what they might have unleashed.

Goodwin’s dad, a former Las Vegas police detective who launched her to German, mentioned what they had been all pondering.

Aleisha Goodwin: My dad known as me very first thing within the morning and mentioned that Jeff had been killed and I did not even get to react earlier than my dad’s subsequent phrase had been, “I do know who my first suspect is.” … As quickly as these phrases got here out of his mouth, I knew instantly too.

Peter Van Sant: That it was Robert?

Aleisha Goodwin: That it was Robert.

The employees on the Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal was questioning the identical factor. Might Telles have been concerned?

Peter Van Sant: The journalistic hounds are — are launched, proper?

Artwork Kane: Sure. We weren’t gonna do something till each little rock was overturned and each little reality was came upon about what — what this man was and who he was.

Artwork Kane, now the investigations editor, was a reporter on the time.

Artwork Kane: And we began discovering out quite a lot of attention-grabbing issues about him. For instance … He was arrested whereas he was public administrator … for choking his spouse.

911 CALL: Are you able to please ship any individual right here? My husband goes loopy.

Artwork Kane: There’s bodycam video that we now have obtained of that.

ROBERT TELLES (police bodycam video): Who did I hit? … cameras, cameras.

OFFICER: Our cameras are on.

ROBERT TELLES: You guys simply wanna take me down ‘trigger I am a public official.

Telles, slurring his phrases, was arrested for home battery and resisting arrest

ROBERT TELLES (police bodycam video): There’s adequate proof to e-book me proper now?

OFFICER: There may be adequate proof to e-book you proper now, sure.

ROBERT TELLES: And I am — I am not making an attempt to be like “I am a public official so you already know, do what I would like you to f****** do.” I am saying, I am not a f***** fool.

He obtained a suspended 90-day sentence on the resisting cost and was ordered to attend a corrective pondering class. The battery cost was dismissed.

Artwork Kane: Nobody ever heard about it as a result of … nobody covers … DUIs and domestics, and that flew below the radar.

Trying again, there have been different warning indicators, says Erickson. Comparable to a sequence of tweets Telles posted in response to German’s reporting.

Peter Van Sant: Learn that one for me. 

Briana Erickson (studying tweet): “Trying ahead to mendacity smear piece #4 by @JGermanRJ. #onetrickpony. I believe he is mad that I have never crawled right into a gap and died. (Laughing emoji.)” 

Peter Van Sant: What did you consider that one?

Briana Erickson: Anyone who’s fairly pissed off.

However the journalists knew indignant tweets did not show something. They wanted information. And information had been laborious to return by.

All that they had had been two nonetheless surveillance pictures the police had launched of the suspect in German’s neighborhood.

The outfit, weird because it appears, might have been a strategic selection, says Kane.

Artwork Kane: The outfit may be very typical of what building staff and individuals who do landscaping put on as a result of they wanna cowl up all their pores and skin from the solar.

When the police launched a surveillance video, Evaluation-Journal photographer Kevin Cannon instantly observed one thing the massive hat and orange reflective shirt could not disguise: the person’s stroll; his gait.

Peter Van Sant: How would you describe that gait?

Kevin Cannon: It is — it is a bit of a — a limp and a favor on one facet, it appears.

Cannon went digging in his recordsdata and located a strolling shot he had taken of Telles when Jeff interviewed him at his workplace. The employees in contrast each movies facet by facet.

Kevin Cannon: I am undecided tips on how to describe it, but it surely was undoubtedly the an identical gait in my thoughts.

Cannon then went via a whole bunch of nonetheless pictures he had taken that day and located one other.

Kevin Cannon: It is a very chilling picture. And it is the one and solely picture the place Jeff and Telles are in the identical picture.

Govt editor Glenn Cook dinner says his employees moved ahead on the working idea that Telles  might have been the killer. However they nonetheless did not have laborious proof.

Then the police launched a photograph of the suspect’s automobile: a maroon Yukon Denali.

Assistant metropolis editor David Ferrara instantly typed Telles’ residence tackle into Google Earth.

David Ferrara: And when you zoom in, on the home, that maroon automobile is there, parked within the driveway.

The maroon SUV was registered to Telles’ spouse.

Glenn Cook dinner: And at that second we ship reporters and photographers straight to the home. And the message I give our Metro editor is, don’t interact, don’t strategy, don’t be seen. This man may be very possible a suspect within the homicide of your colleague, and we won’t predict how he is gonna react to anybody being close to him.

However the photographer – crouching behind his dashboard – managed to get what he got here for.

Peter Van Sant: And is that this the image that’s taken?

Glenn Cook dinner: That is the picture.

Peter Van Sant: That is the cash picture.

Glenn Cook dinner: It is the cash shot.

Glenn Cook dinner: Robert Telles on a scorching sizzling 110-degree day is in denims in his driveway, washing the maroon GMC Yukon Denali.

Peter Van Sant: This should have been a second the place, I do not know if there’s any cheering occurring in your newsroom, however what a improvement. What does this imply?

Artwork Kane: Nicely, it signifies that presumably Jeff was killed by the final story he wrote about. I imply, this was his final investigation and — and the suspect seems to be the man he wrote about and mainly took him out of workplace.

With out corroboration from police paperwork, The Evaluation-Journal could not go along with the story. However Cook dinner was betting it would not be lengthy. His reporters had seen unmarked police automobiles exterior Robert Telles’ residence.

Glenn Cook dinner: We’ve each motive to consider at this level that it is solely a matter of time earlier than a search warrant is gonna be executed at that home.

A search that can uncover essential proof.

A STUNNING ARREST

Because the investigators geared as much as serve Robert Telles with a search warrant, the Evaluation-Journal wanted to make sure it might be the primary to interrupt the information.

Briana Erickson: It was necessary as a result of Jeff was all the time first, and we would not wanna let him down and never be the primary.

Glenn Cook dinner: We polish that story … after which we sit on it till … police transfer in …

Within the early morning of Sept. 7, 2022 – simply 5 days after Jeff German’s homicide – Telles was introduced in for questioning as police searched his residence and automobiles. Whereas he was in custody, detectives collected a DNA pattern from Telles. Additionally they took the denims he was carrying into proof and gave him a white paper swimsuit to vary into earlier than he was taken again to his home and swarmed by reporters eagerly awaiting his arrival.

Inside Telles’ residence, investigators say they discovered fitness center sneakers and a duffel bag much like what was seen within the surveillance video. And after they regarded within the storage, detectives say they found much more – a straw solar hat — or what was left of it.

Peter Van Sant: The solar hat.

Artwork Kane: the solar hat.

Peter Van Sant: Lower up into items?

Artwork Kane: Sure. Sure.

However police say probably the most essential piece of proof would come from the DNA pattern that was taken from Telles earlier that day.

CAPT. DORI KOREN (to reporters): We obtained optimistic DNA outcomes that confirmed Robert Telles’ DNA on the crime scene.

Briana Erickson: Telles’ DNA was below Jeff’s fingernails.

Glenn Cook dinner: There is no doubt in my thoughts that Jeff knew precisely what was taking place in that cut up second and he made positive he bought the proof.

With a DNA match apparently secured, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division descended on Telles’ residence as soon as once more and commenced clearing the realm for an arrest.

Peter Van Sant: And that is the place he was arrested?

Kevin Cannon: Sure.

Evaluation-Journal photographer Kevin Cannon was one in all dozens of media who had been ready exterior Telles’ residence that day.

Peter Van Sant: What occurs when the cops arrive?

Kevin Cannon: Abruptly the police mentioned, “OK, everyone out.” They kicked your entire information — everybody who was right here out.

Peter Van Sant: The place do you go?

Kevin Cannon: So I made a B-line to the entrance door of a neighbor who I befriended earlier once I arrived. They usually, with out saying a phrase, opened the door and welcomed me in and stroll me to their yard the place I might have a view of Telles’ home.

Peter Van Sant: And you can nonetheless see the home out of your vantage level?

Kevin Cannon: From the yard, yeah.

Again within the Evaluation-Journal newsroom, a number of the employees anxiously stored up with what was taking place on the scene via the workplace’s police radio and heard that Telles refused to return out of his residence.

LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE RADIO: Our goal remains to be calm on the telephone. Nevertheless, he has made a pair 405 feedback.  

“405 feedback” – a code Las Vegas police use to point feedback related to self-harm.

Briana Erickson: it was sort of scary at that time. We had been pondering, is — is that this all gonna finish on his phrases now?

LAS VEGAS METROPOLITAN POLICE RADIO: … primarily based on the 405 feedback, we’re going to go forward and make the official request for SWAT.

Kevin Cannon: My colleagues … heard via the scanner that they had been gonna transfer in as a result of he had reduce himself they usually needed to save lots of him earlier than he harmed himself extra.

Peter Van Sant: They usually needed to get to him.

Kevin Cannon: Proper.

The SWAT staff made its transfer. And that is when Cannon bought prepared.

Peter Van Sant: And so that you had been positioned, you had been able to go then?

Kevin Cannon: Proper. I used to be able to go the entire time. I imply, I had my finger on the button the entire time. 

Peter Van Sant: The place do you look, what do you see behind you?

Kevin Cannon: Nicely, I see them rolling him out on a stretcher down — round that nook, down that path, out the driveway and put in an ambulance proper right here.

Cannon was the one photographer that day to seize Telles’ dramatic arrest. His picture of Telles on the stretcher made the entrance web page of the Evaluation-Journal the next morning.

Kevin Cannon: The following day, I, uh, opened the paper and there was a photograph on the entrance web page with a banner headline, “Beautiful Arrest.” And — It was gorgeous.

Peter Van Sant: And satisfying for you in spite of everything that.

Kevin Cannon: Very satisfying.

Artwork Kane: It turns into large information, clearly everywhere in the nation.

A reporter allegedly killed by a politician for a narrative he wrote.

Artwork Kane: That is fairly unprecedented.

After Telles was handled on the hospital for his self-inflicted accidents, he was booked into the Clark County Detention Heart. Six weeks later, Telles was indicted by a grand jury for homicide with use of a lethal weapon.

JUDGE: How do you plead? Responsible or not responsible

ROBERT TELLES: Not responsible, Your Honor.

Quickly after, proof from the grand jury was launched by the Clark County District Court docket — together with that grainy surveillance assault video. 

Artwork Kane: I believe in all probability what we discovered, a number of the most annoying is the final three movies.

Minutes later, it exhibits the assailant returning to the scene of the crime and parking that maroon Yukon Denali in entrance of Germain’s driveway,

Artwork Kane: And now you will see him stroll over and, um, make it possible for Jeff is useless.

Peter Van Sant: And also you’re theorizing he’s checking to see … if he is useless as a result of clearly Jeff noticed this individual.

Artwork Kane: He needs to make it possible for there’s not a witness that is nonetheless alive.

Seemingly glad, the suspect walked again to his automobile and left.

Since his arrest, Telles has been in jail awaiting trial.

CONFRONTING ROBERT TELLES

“48 Hours” met Robert Telles for a video interview on the Clark County Detention Heart and commenced with the query on everybody’s thoughts.

Peter Van Sant: Did you homicide Jeff German?

Robert Telles: No, sir, I didn’t.

Peter Van Sant : If you happen to didn’t commit this homicide, who did?

Robert Telles: I’ll … reserve that for trial.

Peter Van Sant: You have got mentioned … that you just had been framed, do you stand by that on this dialog?

Robert Telles: I do. I completely do.

Telles says he can clarify the proof in opposition to him: the torn up solar hat, the Yukon Denali and his DNA below German’s fingernails.

Robert Telles: I say that that proof or so-called proof was planted together with the opposite objects that had been allegedly present in my residence as nicely. And we’ll go forward and show that at trial.

Peter Van Sant: How might somebody who’s making an attempt to border you plant your DNA below his fingernails? How would which have — have occurred? They — first, they might have needed to have gotten your DNA. … After which when would they’ve planted it below his fingernails? It appears far-fetched.

Robert Telles: Nicely, you already know, crazier issues have occurred, and I am going to inform you that I did not kill Mr. German.

Peter Van Sant: Come on, man. That is overwhelming. … DNA finally ends up below his fingernails, your DNA. That is an awesome case in opposition to you, Robert, that you just dedicated this homicide.

Robert Telles: Once more, sir, you already know, you will have the information unsuitable, and I’ll reveal it at trial.

He additionally says he’ll present he did not do these issues German wrote about in his articles.

Peter Van Sant: Robert, you are saying that what these girls have mentioned to me, what they instructed Jeff German and he printed, these are all lies?

Robert Telles: If you happen to have a look at what Mr. German printed, none of it was — none of it had any information inside it, proper? … It was all alleged opinion about … you already know what how they felt that – that I – I acted.

But it surely’s laborious to argue with the footage the ladies shot of their boss and his alleged lover within the parking storage.

Peter Van Sant: Let me ask you straight … had been you … and Roberta having an affair?

Robert Telles: Uh, no. … she was a … a confidant, um, however I am going to — I am going to depart it at that.

However German was not prepared to go away it at that. He was planning on writing one other piece.

In line with police paperwork, Telles and Roberta bought phrase the day earlier than the homicide that there was a deliberate launch of emails and messages between her and Telles to the Evaluation-Journal.

Peter Van Sant: There was a Freedom of Data [Act] requests that Jeff had put out and also you had been instructed … that new messages and emails had been gonna come out, describing the connection between you and Roberta, communications between the 2 of you. And it is instructed that you decided to homicide him to attempt to silence that, to forestall that from being printed. What do you say about that?

Robert Telles: I am positive that is a mischaracterization of — of issues. … I am going to inform you that what was going to be launched and I noticed was going be launched, um, had no inklings of — of any sort of, you already know, confidential relationship, any sort of supposed affair. … It was all enterprise associated … So, that may not have been a motivation as a result of there was nothing that was going to be produced that — that may look unhealthy.

Glenn Cook dinner: Prosecutors have talked about this as a contributing motive to the homicide. In Robert Telles’ thoughts … Jeff German ruined his marriage, ruined his political profession, embarrassed him and was persevering with to report on him reasonably than depart him alone.

If the intention of the alleged killing was to cease German’s reporting, it did not work. After his homicide, the Evaluation-Journal journalists hunted via German’s notes.

Briana Erickson: Selecting up the place Jeff left off.

And accomplished the tales German had been engaged on on the time of his loss of life, together with one other on Telles’ poisonous previous — a narrative that investigates claims of sexual harassment, all of which he has denied.

Briana Erickson: The principle factor right here is you can not kill a reporter and kill the story. You simply cannot do this. 

In life, German was identified to guard his sources in any respect prices.

In loss of life, German was nonetheless defending them. After the homicide, the police took all his gadgets — which harbored the names of numerous sources.

The Evaluation-Journal went to courtroom, and in a hard-fought courtroom case that went all the way in which to the Nevada Supreme Court docket, the paper gained safety for his sources.

Mark Fierro: That’ll be the German rule that you just won’t be able to enter a reporter’s recordsdata. You won’t be able to undergo their telephone. You won’t be able to have a look at their sources even after loss of life.

The 4 Jeff German sources usually are not about to let the world neglect the reporter who fought to guard them. They’ve attended virtually each listening to making an attempt to return to phrases with their emotions of guilt.

Aleisha Goodwin: As a result of it doesn’t matter what logic is in your head, it is not your fault that Jeff made his selections and that he was an expert. Your coronary heart tells you if we would not have made that decision, he would not have died in that violent means that day. And if I used to be to speak to him at the moment, I believe the very first thing I might say is, “I am sorry.” … However not for him, for me, as a result of he would not have accepted my apology (crying), however I want to present it.

Jeff German was a reporter’s reporter. One of many good guys. A person who spent a lifetime talking fact to energy, truths that at the moment are baked into the historical past of this place – a neon strip of gritty tales laid naked beneath the desert sky.

Glenn Cook dinner: He instructed anybody who requested that he was by no means going to retire, that he was going to report till his final breath. And that is precisely what he did … And he gave his life to this job. He actually gave his life to this job. I believe that is his legacy.

Telles’ trial is scheduled for March 18, 2024. 

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Produced by Liza Finley and Gabriella Demirdjian. Cindy Cesare and Greg Fisher are the event producers. Gregory F. McLaughlin, Chris Crater, Michelle Harris and Wini Dini are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the manager story editor. Judy Tygard is the manager producer.