An individual who reportedly stabbed two tourists to death at the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas in 2018 won’t have his case thrown out as he had hoped. Julius Trotter and his legal defense had tried to convince a judge that law enforcement officers had tampered with evidence that led to a grand jury indictment against the criminal, but the judge saw through the shroud and has ordered Trotter to stand trial.
Trotter was no stranger to the law when he was arrested after the brutal and mortal attack in June of last year. He was already a convicted felon when he stabbed two Vietnamese tour guides to death at the popular venue in search of money. Trotter reportedly went door to door in the hotel of the casino in the middle of the night on June 1, trying doors until he came across one that was open. Unfortunately for Khuong Ba Le Nguyen and Sang Boi Nghia, it was their room and they would become victims of the cold-blooded murderer.
When housekeepers went to clean the room after daybreak, they found the bodies and summoned police. Video surveillance at the venue picked up Trotter in the hallway on the floor where the crimes were committed at around the estimated time of the assault, and then later in other cameras as he was leaving the casino with Nguyen’s backpack.
About a week later, while law enforcement officials were trying to track him down, he was finally picked up in Chino, California following a high-speed chase. He was shipped back to Vegas to answer for his crimes and this is when his lawyers began to spin their tale.
Trotter’s lawyers tried to assert in court that police had coerced their client’s girlfriend into saying that he was guilty. However, they argued, the real story was that Trotter was only a purchaser of stolen goods and that he had bought the backpack from someone inside the casino. He just happened to be on the same floor where the murders took place—around the same time as the murders—and they argued that this is purely coincidental.
Trotter now faces five felony charges, including two for murder. He still claims he is innocent, but will have to do a better job convincing a jury of that when he heads to court next March. He remains locked up on charges related to the high-speed chase.
