Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Smiling Cousins Killed Man at Las Vegas Strip Hotel

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Erika Covington and Arionna Taylor have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the May 2023 death of a man in a hotel room at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Bryan Altamirano-Solano was found shot to death in the hotel room. Prosecutors said surveillance footage and social media posts linked Covington and Taylor to the crime. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the case and the sentence in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If your child, under 21, has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit https://forthepeople.com/food to start a claim now!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Melba Pearson https://www.instagram.com/resident_legal_diva/CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Two cousins are going to prison for luring a man to a hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip and shooting him. I have the chilling details out of the Silver State. This is a Law & Crime Legal Alert. Did you know that children are being diagnosed with serious conditions like type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease? And research is potentially linking ultra-processed foods to these outcomes. Morgan & Morgan is stepping in to fight to hold food companies accountable. With decades of experience fighting

large corporations, they are ready to stand up for families who deserve justice. If your child under age 21 has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or fatty liver disease, visit www.forthepeople.com slash food to learn more. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. This case sounds like an awful plot out of a TV show or a scene from a movie. It's absolutely devastating. Brian Altamirano Solano came to the United States from Nicaragua. He was looking for a better life. He lived in Las Vegas and sadly, it's where his life ended one evening in May of 2023. It was May 17th when Brian Altamirano Solano met two women at a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Surveillance footage showed Altamirano Solano with a bag

across his chest. He was walking through the hallway arm in arm with one woman on each arm. They went to a room at Caesar's Palace. Fif 15 minutes later, the women were running away from the room down the hall. When Altamirano Solano didn't check out of the hotel hours later, a housekeeper found him. He had been shot. Las Vegas Metro Police found an Instagram post showing Ariana Taylor and Erica Covington wearing the same clothes as the women in the video with Altamirano Solano when he was walking to his room. Police also said a cartridge casing in Altamirano Solano's hotel room was matched to Taylor's gun from another incident. The two cousins, Taylor and Covington, were charged with robbing and murdering Brian Altamirano Solano within days. Now, as I mentioned, Brian Altamirano Solano came to the U.S. from Nicaragua looking for a better life, and this happened to him. He became the target of a robbery

and murder. Then late last month, Erica Covington and Ariana Taylor accepted plea agreements, pleading guilty to second-degree murder and other charges. Taylor didn't speak, but Covington apologized to Altamirano Solano's family during the sentencing hearing. Taylor didn't speak, but Covington apologized to Altamirano Solano's family during the sentencing hearing. Solano's mother sadly told the court through an interpreter during the sentencing, the pain that I felt was so deep. I felt like I lost my son. Why? Why my son? Altamirano Solano's father said it wasn't enough just taking his belongings. They had to kill him. I asked for justice for my son.

Both Erica Covington and Ariana Taylor have been sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. They will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years behind bars. I want to bring in Melba Pearson. She is a former prosecutor who prosecuted cases in Florida. I know this is a Nevada case, Melba, but this is a pretty clear-cut case, it seems to me. These two cousins have entered into a plea agreement pleading guilty to second-degree murder. They will be eligible for parole after serving 10 years. Is that surprising to you? It seems like a pretty heinous crime, what happened. So for them to be eligible for release after serving just 10 years, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, so it's definitely my heart goes out to the victim's

family because they are deeply grieving the loss of their loved one and especially over something so senseless. But in terms of the sentence, it's not that unusual in terms of looking at the totality of the circumstances. It's possible that the family didn't want to have to go through an entire trial. It's possible that the two defendants had taken responsibility for their actions and were able as such to be able to craft this plea agreement for them to serve some time in prison, but then have that opportunity to potentially rebuild their lives and maybe make amends

for the horrible things that they did. But the key is just because you're eligible for release after 10 years does not mean you will be released in 10 years. So part of the things that the parole board or whoever the body is in Nevada that is going to be deciding whether or not these two women should be released will be looking at things like, number one, during the time they were incarcerated, did they get an education? So there are GED programs available in many prisons, as well as the ability to get an associate's degree or something like that. Did they try to further their education? Did they engage in going to counseling or something along those lines? What positive things have they done to better their lives and their future during the

time they were incarcerated? Did they get into fights? Did they cause problems? All of those things factor in. And if they did not act in a way that was appropriate or try to move their lives forward, it is unlikely that they would get out after 10 years and will more likely serve their entire sentence. Both, as you mentioned, they accepted responsibility. They did enter into this plea agreement. They pleaded guilty to the charge. So they did accept responsibility to a degree. But when this first happened and they were first taken into custody, apparently Arianna Taylor said that she had a really bad memory because she had been in a car accident. Erica Covington, her cousin, had said, yeah, we met the guy down by the valet, but had trouble communicating with him. And then she kind of lawyered up, which is her right. But the evidence in this case,

I want to talk about the evidence in this case. I mean, it was pretty good evidence. I mean, they have video, surveillance video of the two cousins, Erica Covington and Ariana Taylor, walking arm in arm with Brian Altamirano Solano up to the hotel room. They then, and through other parts of the hotel, and they have them running, running, bolting out of the room 15 minutes later out of the hotel room. I mean, it's not often I don't think that you have a case, Melba, you probably

would love to have had evidence like that in all of your cases. I mean, it seems to me like a very high risk behavior that these two young women engaged in doing this, luring this man to the hotel room, going up there with him, shooting him and then, and dashing out of there. And they had all of this video evidence where it put them with him in the room. And then they matched up the clothing with the Instagram video that one of them had posted. Yes, there was definitely some solid evidence. And you are absolutely right, Anjanette. There were many a case in my career as a prosecutor that I wished I had surveillance video or that the surveillance video was actually clear and not furry.

And you're trying to lead the jury along like if you squint this way, you can see. And it's horrible when you're in those situations because, again, you want to have that best evidence for the jury to understand very clearly point by point as to what happened. But again, part of the evidence in this also included explicit videos of sexual activities that may have occurred in that room. And that could be incredibly embarrassing to the family as well. I mean, granted, we're talking consenting adults, but again, you're talking about someone who has lost their life as a result of a murder.

And then to sort of have these very intimate moments being shown to a courtroom of strangers could have been a lot for the family to have to endure and deal with. So it is possible that in order to preserve the dignity of the victim's name, that they didn't want to have all of these videos and all of this discussion around what he may or may not have been doing that night to really enter the public discourse and just focus on his loss and his memory. Yeah. And the family of Brian Altamirano Solano, I mean, they are just, you know, this may bring one chapter to a close, but they will never get over this. It's just so sad. And listening to

what his mother had to say via the translator, I mean, she was saying, why my son? Why? I mean, it's just absolutely heartbreaking. You know, along was saying, why my son? Why? I mean, it's just absolutely heartbreaking. You know, along with the video evidence, which is probably to me just the best evidence in this case, along with some of the denials made by the two cousins when they were first interviewed, because I feel like sometimes denials can make you look worse than a straight admission. But they said that they also recovered one of the cartridge casings in the hotel room. And that cartridge casing, the police were able to match to Ariana Taylor's handgun

from another prior incident. So that was pretty good kind of corroborating evidence as well. I still say, in my opinion, the video evidence is the best evidence. But when you have that cartridge casing evidence as well, I mean, that's really good evidence too. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there was some discussion as to whether or not, who actually pulled the trigger and who actually was the person that had ended this victim's life but again when we think about it from the legal and the charging perspective it's basically a

conspiracy if the two of you made a plan to go in and rob this person and death resulted both of you are equally as culpable it doesn't matter that you weren't the one to pull the trigger you were involved so this the prosecution did not necessarily have to prove which one of the two cousins pulled the trigger they just had to prove that it was literally one of them the cause and manner of death was homicide and the firearm and the cape the casing was linked to the firearm which was then linked to the defendant so and a lot of people don't quite understand that. I mean, a lot of states have laws like that, whether you're in Nevada, Florida, anywhere else, if you're a part of it and you're there and you're present, you're just as guilty

even if you didn't pull the trigger. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, to go back to a point that you made earlier, this was not only extremely high risk behavior because the victim would have been completely within people went to commit a robbery. The intended victim had a firearm and ended up killing one of the people that attempted to rob them. But then the defendant that was left behind ended up getting charged with their co-defendant's murder, basically. Because again, you went into the situation looking to commit a robbery, a death resulted, you still end up getting held accountable. So this could have gone in so many different directions, but no matter how

you cut it, it was going to end as a tragedy. And for what? I mean, the victim's father said it perfectly. Not only did they rob my son, that was not enough for them. They had to take his life as well. And that was just incredibly heartbreaking. Yeah. And one of the cousin's mothers had posted on Facebook kind of defending her daughter saying, basically, you don't know what happened. You don't really know what happened in that room. And his wallet was still with them. She's claiming he still had his wallet with $1,500 in it at the hotel room and that they just got away with the bag. So, you know, Melba, I mean, that to me is just almost, it makes it even more sad if they took off with a bag and it has nothing of value in it and the $1,500, I mean, it's just

heartbreaking. It doesn't make it any better or worse, but it's just awful to me that even if the $1,500 in the wallet is remaining in the room, it's even more senseless to me in some ways. room but we do know several things number one the victim went into that room and never came back out alive and wasn't discovered till eight hours later by you know a poor housekeeping person just walked in and just that horror of seeing someone deceased in the hotel room that's the last thing you expect when you go to work in the morning so you have the the trauma of not only the family losing their loved one, but of all the other people that were involved in the situation and had to be witnesses to something so horrible. And, you know, we also know that the last people who saw him alive were these two women. And so they're in possession of stolen items from him. They're in possession of the gun, or at least the gun is tied back to them. So the family of the defendant knows the facts.

They're seeing what's publicly available. Now's not the time to try and double down and defend those actions. It's to at least show grace to the family that has lost a loved one and let the justice system take its course. Yeah, it's a heartbreaking case. Just absolutely heartbreaking. And Brian Altamirano Solano should still be here. And my heart goes out to his family. And these young women could be in prison for up to 25 years. Melba Pearson, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.