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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A homeless man who matter-of-factly described hiding in an apartment and killing a Las Vegas mom with a claw hammer told a jury Wednesday the woman's firefighter husband plotted the attack and promised him $5,000 to do it.
Noel Scott Stevens was brought in shackles from jail to court, where he testified that George Miguel Tiaffay purchased the hammer he used and the clothes he wore for the slaying, drew him a map, and told him when his estranged wife, Shauna Tiaffay, would be alone and vulnerable.
Tiaffay, meanwhile, was at work when his wife was killed.
Stevens said the plan changed several times in the weeks while the Tiaffays argued about care for their 8-year-old daughter and money that George Tiaffay had coming from his mother and didn't want to lose to his ex-wife in a divorce.
One scheme was to attack Shauna Tiaffay with a knife and a hammer at night on a dark street after her shift serving cocktails at the Palms Casino. Stevens said it didn't happen because security on the night he chose was unusually tight for a pop megastar's appearance.
Another plan to ambush her between a parking space and her apartment was thwarted when a motion-sensor light came on. Stevens described diving back into the bushes, with a hammer in his hand.
Stevens said George Tiaffay told him to loot Shauna Tiaffay's apartment after killing her so that it would look like a robbery.
"Was the goal here for you and him to get away with it?" prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo asked.
"Yes," Stevens replied.
It was one of many one-word and one-sentence answers from Stevens that were sometimes difficult to understand due to a speech impediment.
Stevens' chillingly matter-of-fact description of stalking and killing Shauna Tiaffay in September 2012 will come under attack Thursday from George Tiaffay's defense attorney, Robert Langford.
Langford casts Stevens as a mentally ill chronic drug and alcohol abuser, and a habitual criminal whose word can't be trusted.
On Wednesday, Langford got another witness, William Pennix, who knew Stevens well and tried to counsel him to stay out of trouble, to rate Stevens a 1.5 on a 10-point believability scale.
During questioning by DiGiacomo, Stevens said he had four prior felony convictions before killing Shauna Tiaffay — for burglary, possession of stolen property and a drug offense in and around his hometown of Delano, California, and for burglary in Las Vegas.
Stevens, 40, pleaded guilty in January 2013 in the slaying case. He faces at least 20 years to life in prison at sentencing after the end of George Tiaffay's trial.
Tiaffay, 43, pleaded not guilty and has been in jail since October 2012. A 1994 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and a firefighter for 10 years, Tiaffay could face life in prison if he's convicted of conspiracy, murder and other charges.
Langford hasn't said if his client will testify.
Pennix, an ex-convict and born-again street counselor, declared before the jury on Wednesday that "right is right and wrong is wrong" and that Tiaffay's estranged wife didn't deserve to be murdered.
Pennix said Stevens told him he did it. But Pennix blamed Tiaffay.
"It took years and years to manipulate this kid," he said.
Pennix said Stevens told him that a firefighter friend paid him hundreds of dollars for minor handyman jobs, which allowed Stevens to keep himself supplied with alcohol, marijuana and crack cocaine. Stevens always seemed to be under the influence, Pennix said.
Prosecutors have built a circumstantial case against Tiaffay.
They've shown the jury store video and receipts putting Tiaffay and Stevens together buying jeans, dark clothing, camping equipment, hammers, a knife and gloves before the slaying.
The jeans — bloodied, with DNA matching Stevens and Shauna Tiaffay — were later found near one of Stevens' encampments.
DiGiacomo said cellphone tower data traced Stevens' movements between campsites, the Palms and the homes of George Tiaffay and Shauna Tiaffay.
And as police grew closer to questioning George Tiaffay after his wife's death, he crashed his pickup at more than 80 mph into a concrete retaining wall, but survived.
DiGiacomo said there were no skid marks.
What that means could be left to jurors who heard George Tiaffay describing his troubled marriage and his own state of mind in an hour-long recorded police interview following his wife's murder, his crash and his arrest.
"I just want to die," he said.
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