Meet Zane Floyd. It was one bad day while shopping for groceries that resulted in the death of four people and himself a spot on Nevada's death row. Floyd was born in Las Vegas on September 20, 1975 but the details around his early life are relatively obscure, however one relative would testify that he was a possible victim of fetal alcohol syndrome. He graduated Faith Lutheran Middle & High School in Summerlin, a Vegas suburb, in 1994. Floyd enlisted in the Marines where he served for four years and was discharged in July 1998 due to alcoholism. He then worked as a bar bouncer and a security guard in Vegas.On June 1, 1999, Floyd moved into a guest house behind his parents' home. The following evening he went gambling in the Vegas casinos, lost a significant amount of money at blackjack, and was feeling despondent which may have triggered his final explosion. At the casino his girlfriend also argued with him and wanted to go home while he wanted to stay for a while and continue gambling. He hired a call girl from the Love Bound escort service, who arrived at his home just before sunrise on June 3. No sooner had she gotten there then Floyd pulled out a shotgun and said she was going to help him fulfill a "sick fantasy" in his head. He raped and terrorized the escort for about an hour, then put on combat boots and his Marine camo outfit. He put a bathrobe over his clothing and remarked that he planned to kill the first 15 people he encountered. The escort fled the apartment as Floyd prepared to start his rampage.
It was about 5:15 AM when Floyd walked into the Albertson's supermarket on West Sahara Avenue and began shooting with a shotgun. The first to fall was a store worker named Thomas Darnell, killed with a shot to the back. He then shot the store manager Carlos Leos, another worker named Dennis Sargent, and a fourth named Zachary Emenegger, who tried to run. He hid under a produce table but was finally shot in the chest, collapsing his right lung. Emenegger played dead, which convinced Floyd enough that he left him go and started looking for other vitctims. A clerk in the back of the store, Lucille Tarantino, was shot in the head at near point blank range. The victims ranged in age from 23 to 60.Floyd walked out the north entrance of the supermarket and ran into police units; an employee in the upstairs office of the Albertson's heard gunshots and thought a robbery was happening so he called 911. He went back inside and out the west entrance, but there were police there too. Floyd pointed the shotgun to his head and yelled that he would kill himself. After an eight minute standoff, he was finally convinced to surrender. Floyd admitted to police that he wanted to know what it was like to shoot someone. He said that his life was in disarray, he'd just lost a lot of money gambling, and was humiliated at the abrupt end of his military career and being forced to move back in with his parents and work lowly jobs. He could not bring himself to actually commit suicide and he hoped police would kill him if he shot at them, but he didn't have the guts to do that either.
FBI profiler Patricia Kirby said that Floyd was a fairly typical mass murder. This type, she said, nurses violent fantasies in their childhood and teens but are able to contain them until their 20s. They usually see themselves as losers and failures. Often they join the military hoping for a sense of power and validation, but end up being dishonorably discharged as they are no more successful there than in civilian life. Floyd had admitted that he'd wanted to kill ever since watching violent war movies as a child and he joined the Marines with the hope of living his dream.His trial began June 11, 2000 and only lasted three days. Floyd did not take the stand in his own defense and his confession and store security camera footage were used as evidence as well as the testimony of Zach Emenegger. The jury took all of four hours to find him guilty of four counts of first degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon, sexual assault with a deadly weapon (for the beating and rape of the escort girl), use of a firearm during the commission of a burglary, attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon, and first degree kidnapping with the use of a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to death.
Floyd's attempts to appeal his sentence to the state and Federal courts were unsuccessful; the Supreme Court also refused to hear the case. By 2020 he had exhausted his last appeals and his date of execution was set for July 26, 2021 but a US district judge ordered a stay of execution. He received another stay of execution in February 2022 as the state would be unable to execute him by February 28 when their supply of ketamine, one of the drugs used in Nevada's lethal injections, expired.As of 2023 Floyd remains on Nevada's death row awaiting execution.
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