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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A publicist's book on behalf of the family of a Las Vegas mom killed in a neighborhood gunbattle may have thrown a wrench into plans to begin the trial this month for two co-defendants facing murder and conspiracy charges.
Attorneys for the 20-year-old accused shooter, Erich Milton Nowsch Jr., and alleged vehicle driver Derrick Andrews, 27, told Clark County District Court Judge Michael Villani that the publication was one reason they can't be ready for trial Oct. 19.
Andrews is accused of driving while Nowsch allegedly shot Tammy Meyers outside her home last Feb. 12. Both have pleaded not guilty and rejected plea deals that would avoid trial in what once was cast as a road-rage shooting but now appears to have stemmed from a series of coincidences and mistakes.
Nowsch and Andrews could face life in prison if they're convicted.
Nowsch's lawyers, Augustus Claus and Conrad Claus, told the judge they also need time to download, evaluate and investigate some 14,000 text messages they said a technician found on a cellphone seized by police after the shooting and turned over to them last week in preparation for trial.
The judge set a Thursday hearing after the Claus brothers filed documents saying the published account by the family of Tammy Meyers may contain evidence about the shooting that they need to check before trial.
Meyers' husband, Robert Meyers, said in the court hallway the book was an answer to rumors, social media attacks and tabloid accounts suggesting his wife was buying or selling illegal drugs from Nowsch, and that the 44-year-old mother of four went looking for trouble the night she was killed.
"I think people need to know, you know, the real Tammy," Robert Meyers said, "not the speculation out there in the media about what happened and who my wife was."
Robert Meyers accuses Nowsch's lawyers of marring his dead wife's memory by focusing on autopsy records showing she had the painkiller oxycodone and diazepam, commonly called valium, in her system when she died.
Tammy Meyers was shot once in the head Feb. 12 during a fusillade of gunfire in a cul-de-sac near her home. She died at a hospital when her organs were donated Feb. 14.
Police initially labeled the slaying a random road-rage attack after Meyers' 15-year-old daughter told investigators she and her mom had been threatened by an aggressive driver who blocked their way home from a late-night driving lesson.
That driver has never been found. A sketch produced from daughter Kristal Meyers' memory didn't look anything like Nowsch or Andrews.
Later, it was revealed that the mom dropped the daughter off at home and drove back through the neighborhood with her adult son, armed with his handgun.
Police say the son, Brandon Meyers, fired three shots at Andrews and Nowsch while Nowsch fired as many as 24 shots at him and his mother. Brandon Meyers wasn't wounded.
In recent months, prosecutors have said it appeared Tammy Meyers thought the car with Nowsch and Andrews in it was the same one she and her daughter saw earlier.
Nowsch told police in a recorded statement that he feared the people in the car driven by Tammy Meyers were following him and meant to do him harm.
Publicist Mark Fierro, a family friend who covered court cases for a Las Vegas TV station for a decade before opening a political consultant firm in 1995, said Meyers hired him to write and publish the family story.
"This is the first time a victim ever needed their reputation restored," Fierro said Tuesday. "We just said, 'How do we defend her?' We needed something bigger than an op-ed piece."
Fierro said he reviewed court records and interviewed family and friends for "Road Rage in Las Vegas, The Senseless Murder of Tammy Meyers." Fierro said he expects to publish another account after trial.
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