Kirstin Blaise Lobato V. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department et al

Case Background

On July 23, 2019, Plaintiff Kirstin Blaise Lobato filed a Civil rights lawsuit in the District Court of Nevada, Las Vegas Division(Case number: 2:19cv1273). This case was assigned to Judge Richard F. Boulware, II and referred to Magistrate Judge Elayna J. Youchah

Cause

In May 2001, Kirstin Blaise Lobato, a young woman living in Las Vegas, Nevada, survived an attempted sexual assault. She successfully defended herself by cutting her attacker with a knife before escaping. Later that summer, on July 8, 2001, a man named Duran Bailey was brutally murdered in Las Vegas. The murder scene revealed a horrifyingly violent crime, with Bailey’s body showing severe trauma, including stab wounds, slashes, and mutilation. However, Lobato was nowhere near the crime scene. She was in Panaca, Nevada, over 170 miles away, where multiple witnesses confirmed her presence from July 2 to July 9. Despite this alibi, detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) wrongfully accused her of Bailey’s murder. The detectives ignored exculpatory evidence, manipulated witness statements, and fabricated a false confession during an interrogation. They distorted her account of the attempted assault in May, twisting it to claim she had confessed to Bailey’s murder. There was no physical evidence linking her to the crime. The fingerprints, shoeprints, and DNA found at the crime scene did not match hers. Furthermore, her car and belongings showed no traces of blood or other evi