Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - Justice for Keysha Brown

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

A Las Vegas cold case sat unsolved for 19 years — until DNA evidence pointed investigators to a convicted serial killer already behind bars. But even now, justice for Keysha Brown remains uncertain.In October 2004, 28-year-old Keysha Tamika Brown was found murdered in her Las Vegas apartment. Witnesses saw a man enter her home and later leave carrying a duffel bag, but despite evidence collected at the scene, investigators had no suspect. Her case went cold for nearly two decades.Then, in 2023, new DNA testing and a fresh review by a cold case detective led police to a shocking conclusion: the person responsible may have been a man already serving multiple life sentences for killing other women in Las Vegas in 2005.In this episode, we share what we were able to learn about Keysha’s life and the lives of three other women investigators say were also killed by the same man: Shelia “Pooka” Quarles, Marilee Coote, and Rena Gonzales. Their stories were largely overshadowed by the sensational details of the crimes. Today, we focus on the victims — who they were, the families who loved them, and the unanswered questions that remain nearly twenty years later.https://sinspod.co/116https://sinspod.co/116transcripthttps://sinspod.co/116bloghttps://sinspod.co/116subBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.Domestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag! Get ad-free access for only $1 a month or ad-free and bonus episodes for $3 a monthApple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms

To listen ad-free, visit sinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show. In October 2004, a young mother was murdered in Las Vegas. Eyewitnesses saw a man enter her apartment and leave with a duffel bag, but with no leads or suspects, the case went ice cold and stayed frozen for 19 years. Thanks to an observant cold case detect. perspective, police finally named a suspect. The announcement that a serial killer was responsible for her death shocked the community. And everyone is wondering, will Keisha Brown ever receive justice?

Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I'm your host, Sean. And I'm your co-host, John. I've been thinking about our intro. And while I think all of that is true, I think that over our almost. three seasons, it's clear that we focus on a lot more than just those three kinds of cases. And this week's episode is an example of that. But before we get to that, we have another

missing cold case to share with all of you. John, do you want to start us off? Yeah. This week, we wanted to highlight the missing person case of David Barada. David has been missing for just over eight years since January 14th, 2018, when he was 48 years old. So he'd be 56 years old today in 2006. Sadly, he was very recently married, only three weeks before he disappeared on December 29th, 2017. He's from Jerusalem, Israel, and he had been living and working in the U.S. for about

10 years, seemingly at an outlet mall in a kiosk for at least some of that time. This is one of those frustrating cases where there is very little information. We will share the NamUs link for the case, but there's very very very. little information there. And the same thing with the metro missing site. There's very little information. What we do know is that he was last seen leaving the Las Vegas premium outlets south in a white van. The van was recovered, but David has never been seen again. Other information we found from other sources were that a person who said he was a longtime friend of David claimed that there was an amount of blood in the van when it was recovered, though it wasn't

clear if this is true and if it was true how much blood there was. David is a Caucasian male 5'9, between 160 and 170 pounds. He has brown eyes. He was bald, shaved bald, at the time he disappeared. He was last seen wearing a black hoodie with a mortal combat silhouette, black pants, and black shoes. He has tattoos on both upper arms, a tattoo on the back of his shoulder, and a tattoo of a nude angel with a sword on his ankle. We'll share the link to the Charlie Project page in the show notes. We also found an Israeli docu series called Avudim, which is Lost in Hebrew.

In their 18th season in 2025, they did a four-episode arc on David's disappearance, interviewing his friends and family and following his mom searching for him here in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, I don't speak Hebrew, and I can't seem to get the show to speak. stream. So if anyone out there can speak Hebrew and get the show to stream in Hebrew or English with a VPN or something, please let us know. We will also share a link to that in the show notes, and those will be at Sinspod.co slash 116 sources. As always, we'll share photos of David and what we have, but if you know anything about David's whereabouts, please reach out to Las Vegas Metro's Missing Persons Unit at 702-828-2-2-9-07 or email them at Missing Persons Cold Case at

LvMPD.com, or you can remain anonymous by calling CrimeStoppers at 702-385-5555-5 or submitting a tip on the website at Crimesoppers of NV.com. But back to this week's cake. We definitely don't cover a lot of serial killers on the podcast. We did cover Thomas Randolph, who might be considered a serial killer, though he was only convicted once. Also, when true crime podcasts share stories about serial killers, the focus typically gets pulled away from the victims. Victim advocates always say that you can name Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy, but it's rare that you can name any of their victims. This case is a prime example of that.

In researching the case, we noticed that the facts and circumstances of Keesiod. his death and the other women's death were the focus and the press 20 years ago did a very insufficient job talking about who these women were. The circumstances of their deaths were particularly horrific and we're not going to go into detail about that. Our goal is to share everything that we were able to learn about the victims. Keisha Tamika Brown was born on October 8, 1976 in Southern California. She had at least one daughter that I was able to find mentioned in the news coverage. Her mother's name was Andronette, and her family has roots going back to Southern California for several generations. Kisha lived in an apartment near the UNLV campus,

near Flamingo and University Center Drive. She was barely 28 years old when her boyfriend found her deceased in the bathtub of her apartment on October 19, 2004. The bathtub had hot water in it, and Kisha had been covered up with a towel. The investigation would show that she died from blunt force trauma. She also had been strangled and had drowned. We don't know a lot about the police investigation, except they did interview her neighbors at the apartment complex. Witnesses described seeing a man pull up in a red sedan. He went to her apartment and came out carrying a duffel bag. Evidence from the scene that could possibly lead to a potential suspect was collected and preserved, though officers had little to go on. At the time, the police were unable to identify a suspect and her

case remained unsolved for nearly two decades. In late 2022, Las Vegas Metro performed a review of all their open cold cases, and investigators took another look at Keisha's murder. One of those investigators was Dan Long, a detective we mentioned a few times in our first season. Detective Long was a lead investigator on the cases involving Shauna TFA and Debbie Flores Narvaez, which we covered in episodes 14 and 18. Detective Long read the description of how Keisha was found. The circumstances were nearly identical to those of a case he had worked on in 2005.

Additional DNA testing was done for items found in Keisha's apartment, and police finally had a match. On February 23, 2003, Las Vegas Metro held a press conference and announced that after nearly 20 years, they'd identified a suspect who was about to be arrested in charge with Keisha's murder. That's strange, of course, because why would they announce? that before they arrested the suspect. But there's actually a perfectly reasonable reason for that in this case, though. The DNA matched a man named Norman Flowers, who was serving three life sentences for the murders of three women in 2005. Metro characterized Flowers as a serial killer. They stated that now they believe Keisha had been his first victim, though they have no known motive for that crime. We thought about not even sharing his name in this episode, because like we said, serial murderers

tend to get a lot of attention and are the subject of intense investigation and analysis and true crime podcasts and documentaries. Flowers took the life of an 18-year-old woman and three mothers in 2004 and 2005 and the sensational nature of the crimes completely overshadowed their lives. During our research, we attempted to find out as much as we could about all of them so we could share who they were with all of you. Sheila Puka Quarles was just 18 years old and living with her mom, Deborah, in an apartment at Pacoast and Washington Avenue, the area of Las Vegas known as East Las Vegas. Sheila had six brothers and two sisters and worked as a supervisor at Starbucks. On March 24, 2005, Sheila stayed home from work.

Deborah spoke with her a couple times on the phone that day, the last time being around 1 p.m. But when Deborah got home from work that day at 3, she found her beloved daughter deceased in the bathtub, which was filled with hot water. Sheila had been strangled and also had drowned. The police collected evidence, but they did not have any suspects or leads. The guy Sheila was dating at the time had a serious criminal history, but he had a very tight alibi of being at work during the window when Sheila had been killed. Again, police collected DNA left by the murderer, but the investigation stalled and no suspect was arrested.

We're going to pause here for a quick break, but we'll be right back to share with you how much you identified flowers as Sheila's murderer. What happened at the Silver Pines Apartments at Russell Road and Boulder Highway, just six weeks later, led police directly to flowers. On the morning of May 3, 2005, co-workers of Marilee Coot at the Andre Agassi Preparatory Academy called her apartment manager after Marley didn't show up for work. Around 10 a.m., Marley, just 45 years old, was also found dead in her apartment. Marilly was an immigrant from Belize and lived most of her life in El Paso, Texas, where she once worked at the Speaking Rock Casino. Her son, DJ, became a successful and well-known football player at Ventura College. He and his mom had an undeniable bond. An article from 2000 has a photo of DJ showing off his tattoo of his mom's portrait on his left arm.

According to DJ, his mother was an extremely hard worker, working 10-hour days Monday through Saturday, which he said she liked, but he hated. DJ would eventually play Division I football at Oregon State University, starting in 2001. The article quotes Marilee's mom telling the Ventura County star that Marilee said she'd have another child if someone made her the promise that her next child would be as good as the one she already had. Evidently, no one could make that promise, and DJ was Marley's only child. According to the police report, Marilee was found on the floor of her living room, and it would later determined that she died from strangulation.

Police discovered about 10 inches of hot water in her bathtub, along with some paperwork, a phone book, bills, and jewelry boxes, all covered with a towel. In these cases, it was the bathtub that stood out to investigators and helped them connect the dots. About six hours later that day, police were again called to the Silver Pines apartments. A 911 call came in from a nine-year-old boy who told the operator that his friend's mother was passed out and wouldn't wake

out. When police arrived, they found 25-year-old Rena Gonzalez had been strangled. Her apartment was just about 200 feet from Maryle's. When Rena's two young daughters had come home from school that day around 4 o'clock, they found their apartment door unlocked and their mother inside. He tried to wake her up before going to find their friend, the boy who had called the police for help. The brief information we were able to find out about Rena was that at the time of her death, she was unemployed. And some of the reporting seems to indicate that she was living with a disability. Police canvassed the complex and discovered that one resident had seen a man named Norman Flowers in the complex that day, going back and forth to Rina's apartment. She said she knew

who he was because he had dated her neighbor. She said he was acting strangely, knocking on her door multiple times, asking for water or to use the bathroom. Once the police showed up on the call about Merrily, she could tell he was trying to hide from the officers, and he told her that he was very nervous to see the police because he was on parole and didn't want any trouble. At one point, he tried to kiss her, and this upset her very much. Police then spoke to Flowers' ex-girlfriend, who lived in the apartment next door to Merrily. She hadn't seen Flowers in more than two months, but he had taped a note to her door the day her friends Merrily and Rina were killed. According to the police report, she found it very odd that on the day that her two friends were found

deceased, living within several hundred feet of each other, he have left a note on her door, knowing she was at work. She told police that her ex-flowers knew both Mary Lee and Rina. He had an extensive criminal history. In 1992, when he was 18 years old, he was arrested for a series of burglaries and stealing a vehicle from a car dealership at gunpoint. He also killed a pet dog when he left it inside a house he set on fire after burglary. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 years. He was released on parole after serving about 10. That parole was revoked soon after when he violated a temporary protection order against his wife. He had most recently been released on parole on March 4, 2005. Police were able to collect DNA from Marley. When they ran it,

it came back as a match to the DNA from Sheila's murder. Officers were able to obtain a DNA sample from flowers, and it was a match, linking him positively to the murders of both Sheila and and Marilee. However, it did not match the DNA sample they collected from Rina. When the police questioned flowers, he said that he did not speak to Marley that day, but he said he knocked on Rina's door and asked her to give a message to his ex-girlfriend when she got home. He denied going into her apartment. Police also questioned him about knowing Sheila, and he tried to say that he didn't know who she was, but then corrected himself, saying he did know her, but by her nickname Puka. When they asked Sheila's mom Deborah about him, it turned out that

that Deborah had dated Flowers briefly back in 2004. Two weeks before Sheila's murder, Flowers visited Deborah and Sheila at their apartment and told them he'd been hired to do maintenance work at the complex. They spoke for about 20 minutes, but it was later determined by property managers that he was lying about that. He was never hired to do any work there. Horrifically, after Sheila was killed, he had comforted Deborah, urging her to seek counseling.

He even drove her to counseling appointments. He was also asking her for updates about the investigation. Remember when we mentioned that he was released on parole on March 4, 2005? It was just 20 days later that he killed Sheila. Flowers was arrested and charged with the murders of all three women. Police were unsure about charging him with Rina's murder at first due to the lack of DNA evidence, and worse than that, the DNA evidence they had excluded him. However, several witnesses placed him in the complex that day, as we mentioned.

Also, several jailhouse informants stated that he confessed to strangling Rina. Prosecutors were not able to try him for all three murders at the same time. They were allowed to try Mary Lee and Rina's murders together, but Sheila's was separate, and it was the first one he was prosecuted for. Prosecution sought the death penalty. And based on the DNA match and the information we shared earlier, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder, sexual assault, and burglary. Deborah told the R.J, her life meant nothing.

nothing to him, but everything to me. Flowers's mother gave detailed mitigating evidence about his childhood and upbringing, which resulted in the jury deciding against the death penalty. He was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. Trying merrily and Rina's murders together presented numerous challenges, as the lack of DNA evidence we mentioned connecting him to Rina was also an issue for the prosecution. We've spoken before about prior bad acts being admitted as evidence, and it's clear from the court documents in this case that the prosecution saw the connections

between the three crimes, including that Flowers had used hot water in the bathtub to try and conceal evidence every time. The pretrial motions went on for years until June 10, 2011, when Flowers pleaded guilty in an Alford plea to the murder, sexual assault, and burglary of both Marilee and Rina. He was sentenced to two additional life sentences. Despite his attempts to appeal. His convictions were affirmed by the Nevada Supreme Court in 2020. As a result, when Norman Flowers was identified in February 23 as a suspect in Keisha's murder, he was already incarcerated at High Desert State Prison. Keisha's daughter, now an adult, spoke at the press conference through her tears that she was thankful that the police were able

to provide some closure for her. She said, I went this long without knowing anything about what happened to my mom. It's been three years since the announcement of Flowers' as a suspect in his arrest. However, according to the court records we were able to access, a grand jury failed to indict him of the charges. So while Las Vegas Metro stated this was justice, he won't be brought to trial for Keisha's murder, and he won't be sentenced to any additional time for what he did to her or her family. It's very easy to find out information about flowers. We found his victims mentioned in passing in several blogs and forum posts about fascinating American serial killers.

Articles in the Las Vegas Review Journal went in a great depth about the testimony his mother gave about his childhood during his sentencing for Sheila's murder. The journalists believed that it was her statements that led to the jury deciding to sentence him to life rather than impose the death penalty. We have decided not to discuss those details about his life history. In contrast, we didn't find any articles with victim impact information or detailed interviews from Keisha's daughter, Sheila's mom Deborah, Mary's son DJ, or anyone from Reina's family, which of course may have been their choice, not to speak to the press, but the reporters

covering these cases did not hesitate to share the horrific details about how these women died, the injuries they sustained, what they were wearing, and the information about their dating histories, with just a passing word about their family members or their career. We are very disappointed that we know so little about their lives, interests, and personalities. It was next to impossible to find any photos of these women, while Flowers' this photo appears in nearly every article. Reporters and bloggers repeatedly spelled Rena's name incorrectly, which made information about her even harder to track down. Our goal today was to stress a few things. One, that there are cold cases out there that can still be solved with DNA

testing and clever detectives who are willing to put in the time to review old cases. We are grateful that Keisha's family now has an answer. We also wanted to take the time to try and uncover more information about these women who are part of our community, four daughters, one very young woman and three young mothers who were beloved by their families and are missed nearly 20 years later. Unfortunately, our efforts were not as successful as we hope they'd be, but certainly what we've covered here is more than you'll find in any blog about their deaths. Lastly, we want to note that these four women were women of color and from working or middle

class families and we always want to call out how victims will never get the care and attention of others. And we always want to call out how certain victims will never get the care and attention of others. A broke mom in an apartment in East Las Vegas will never get the attention of a blonde mom living in Anthem, but their lives and their family's quests for justice matter. If there are any updates, we will of course share them with you. John and I are going to continue this conversation in the swing shift bonus episode that we record every week after our episode. You can hear that and all of our back episodes ad free if you visit our Patreon or subscribe on Apple Music. You can go to Sinspod.com slash subscribe for more information on that. We'll be back next week with an all new episode.

Until then, remember what happens here. Happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit Sinspod.com slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at Questions at Sins and Survivors.com. If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, Sins and Survivors.com.

Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your host, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, Sinsensensensensensensurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does not constitute legal advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with legal professionals for guidance.