True Crime with Kimbyr - Vegas Showgirl Vanishes in Broad Daylight! The Chilling Murder of Ginger Rios

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In this gripping episode of True Crime with Kimbyr, we uncover the haunting disappearance of Vegas showgirl Ginger Rios. What started as a simple shopping trip took a sinister turn when she vanished without a trace. As investigators dug deeper, a shocking truth emerged—one filled with deception, betrayal, and a chilling confession. What really happened to Ginger that fateful day? Join us as we unravel the mystery behind her tragic fate. Don’t miss this chilling true crime story! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20-year-old Ginger Rios was living and working in Las Vegas as a singer and dancer performing at local casino hotels. She just got married and moved into a brand new house. Her life was finally coming together, except it would be falling apart before she knew it when she vanished in broad daylight. This is her story. Today, I want to introduce you to the Rios family. Denise and George and their two daughters, Daniela and Ginger. Denise was a native of Nevada.

She was born on May 17, 1952 in Clark County. She was Denise Wadsworth before meeting and falling in love with George Rios. When Denise was growing up, she spent her early years in Alamo, Nevada, where she played with her siblings and friends and enjoyed nature on ranches, fields, and hot springs with her family until they relocated to Las Vegas in 1959,

which she made her permanent home. Denise graduated. from Valley High School in 1970 and she met her soulmate George. The two of them got married three years later on February 3rd, 1973. The pair moved into the historic Hunt Ridge neighborhood. It's now known as a vintage Vegas community, which I thought was quite interesting. It was the first tracked subdivision in Las Vegas constructed in the 1940s. The centerpiece was the Huntridge movie theater, which attracted people from all over in the 80s. It still stands today as a a relic of the past.

Huntridge used to be the place to live in Las Vegas, and it wasn't known for the flashing lights, the gambling, or partying. It was known for its spacious bungalow, ranch, and Spanish-style homes to raise a family in. For George and Denise, it was the perfect place to call home and raise the family of their own, starting with their daughter, Ginger Rios,

who was born June 14th, 1976, just three years after they got married, and she's a Gemini like me. My birthday just passed on June 7th. Ginger's name, starts with the Jay Lake George's, and there's a reason why I'm pointing this out. Denise was working as a flight attendant on a charter airline at the time while George worked in casinos on the Vegas trip. Denise's real passion, though, was being a mother and taking

care of the home. When she wasn't doing that, she was winning trophies on the tennis court and planting roses in her garden, but nothing beat being a mom. So she and George had another baby in 1978. It was another girl, and they named her Daniela with a D. just like Denise. Now their family was complete. And I thought it was worth mentioning that they named their children with their initials because I thought that was really cute and endearing.

Family truly meant everything to Denise and George, who were still very much in love as the years went on, having fun together with their two girls who were close in age and spent a lot of time with one another growing up. Ginger was a ball of energy and an entertainer from an early age. She loved being the center of attention. She would put on dance routines

performances for her friends and her family. She couldn't have been born in a better place to chase stardom and that seemed to be what Ginger always wanted. It was hard not to make that your dream when you're growing up in Las Vegas. So Ginger and her family were always around the commotion of this glowing city. Las Vegas is known for 24-hour excitement and activities to keep people busy day in and day out. It has around-the-clock parties, bars, casinos, and tons of tourist attractions for adrenaline seekers worldwide. And as many of you know, they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

It's glitzy, it's upbeat, and most of all, it's fun. But it can also be dangerous. There are many people that come into that city from all over the country, even all over the world, making it a melting pot of strangers, each one with their own agenda.

And by the time Ginger was an adult, she had an agenda of her own. In her words, she wanted to be the queen of Las Vegas. She wanted to be a performer. She had been practicing practically her whole entire life, and she had a natural talent for singing and dancing, and this led her to join a number of different singing groups. She was working her way up to ultimate stardom. She was pretty much paying her dues, you know, she was a backup singer, a backup dancer, until she could shine brightly on her own. Another thing Ginger had on her list was love and marriage. She had been dating

a guy named Mark Hollinger, who was 14 years her senior. And yes, Her parents could have been a little apprehensive at first, but Mark was good to Ginger. He was very supportive of her goals and her aspirations and it wasn't long before the two of them had plans to make their relationship more official. In November of 1996, when Ginger was only 20, and Mark was 34 years old, the two lovebirds got married.

Some thought it was an odd match with Ginger being so outgoing and Mark being quite the introvert, but they may have balanced each other out. And Ginger was an adult. Nothing was going to stop. her from doing what she wanted. And she had a good head on her shoulders. Her mom knew that she was one of the kind of souls. She cared about others. She was the kind of person that would come to you when you're feeling down. You're not feeling well. She would come over and she would say, what's wrong? And then she would

just give you this big hug until you felt better. George and Denise knew that they did a great job raising their daughters in a loving and supportive environment. They knew Ginger was responsible. She was ambitious and driven. And they had no doubt that she would reach. her goals of being the queen of Las Vegas. But first, she and Mark wanted to move in together. In the spring of 1997, Ginger found this amazing house. It was closer to the Las Vegas trip, but still close enough to her family. It was for rent with an option to buy at the end of the lease, and it had a basement area that would be perfect for a dance floor so she could go over her dance routines. And at this point, she was practicing a lot because she landed a spot as a dancer

and a backup singer in a six-member band called the salsa machine. They performed regularly at the Santa Fe Hotel and Casino. George and Denise were excited for Ginger when she and Mark got the news that their application for the home was accepted. They would get the keys on April 1st and move-in was set for April 3rd. When that date came, George helped Mark and Ginger move everything into their new home. They were so excited about this new chapter of their lives together. Ginger was already in planning mode.

She wanted to make sure that everything was set up perfectly to succeed in their new life. She knew that she needed to save up for future auditions, for costumes, travel expenses, anything to support her creative growth. So she needed to have a clear plan of how they could spend their money, but also have some leftover for both business and pleasure. Ginger kind of became obsessed with getting her and her now husband marks finances in order following the move. She really wanted them to make this house their home after the rental period was over. So she started to look into what that entailed and realized that she and Mark would have to have good credit in order to eventually buy this house. While doing some research and reading up on how they could better organize their finances,

Ginger wanted to get some books that focused specifically on topics related to restoring and building credit, saving, things like that. And there was a popular store in their new neighborhood that sold books like these among other really interesting things. It was called the SpyCraft Store, and everyone had been talking about it. The Associated Press actually ran an article saying it was like a trip to a candy store for adults with so many unique gadgets like hitting cameras for undercover surveillance, lockpicks, a device to remove those store ink tags from clothing. Hmm, I wonder who would need one of those. But according to the owner of the store, he had an off-the-books association with his,

CIA, the FBI, and the DEA, who would come in to buy things that would assist in their investigations. The store sold things like Master Keys to General Motors cars, police badges, flashing lights, and video transmitter glasses like the ones at Mission Impossible. They had clientele from security guards to celebrities and serve private companies, casinos, homeowners, anyone who wanted to protect themselves. But the owner actually said that their biggest seller were child locators. They would be if a kid wandered off and housewives bought more lock picks than anyone else. And he doesn't know why and he never asked. Seems like there would be a lot of questionable people coming into the store,

especially because of the hidden cameras and the weapons for sale, like a knife that looked like a pen or vehicle trackers. But they also sold things that the owner said a lot of women would buy, like stun guns, pepper spray, and other self-defense items to protect themselves. Spycraft was a small store. store in a rather grungy strip mall right across from Boulevard Mall on Maryland Parkway. This was quite a busy area in Las Vegas. And it was filled with other bigger and more well-known shops, but here's what it looks like today.

Just a typical cd strip mall in Vegas. Compared to the rest of Vegas, it was just this tiny store hidden among the normal everyday places you'd run in real quick to do an errand. Most of the people who had been there thought it was cool if you were just looking around the place for items you might not see anywhere else. It also closed really early, so it stuck out from the late-night vibe of the city and Ginger was anxious to get there with enough time to look around for the books that she needed. It was Friday, April 4th, just one day after Ginger and Mark had moved in, and they had a bunch of things to buy for their new house, so they headed off to get their errands done. Mark was driving, he pulled into the shopping plaza close to 4 p.m., and parked right out here

in front, where the door to SpyCraft store was located. It was in this. It was in the this approximate area right here. At the time, the store was in one of these locations. Now it's been replaced with something else. Ginger told Mark, she would only need to run in for a few minutes, grab the books she needed, and she'd be right back. So he decided to stay in the car and wait for her. Mark was just smoking a cigarette, staring out into the sights and sounds of that busy city street, but when he finished a cigarette and Ginger still wasn't back, he figured maybe she found some other things interesting in there or the checkout line was really long. So he continued waiting just a few more minutes. But after a while, he became restless and he wondered, what is taking her so long?

So Mark decides to go inside to get her. When he walked in, he expected to see Ginger waiting in line to buy her books. But she wasn't there. So he wandered down a few of the aisles, but this store was not big. So it was becoming clear to him, Ginger wasn't inside. That's when he saw a man and a woman standing behind the front counter and he went up and asked them, have you seen my wife? He said she was a young, Fatibru Nat, and the man working there said, oh yeah, yeah, she was just in here. And the woman chimed in, yeah, I saw her too. The man said she bought a couple of books and she left. Ginger had only been gone a few minutes. So the man told Mark that she couldn't have gone far. Mark was perplexed. He left the store very quickly thinking Ginger possibly decided to go to one of the other stores in the

plaza. So he began looking around to see if you could see her inside any of them. He couldn't from the outside, so he started to go into each and every one and take a look, asking if anyone inside had seen her. But nobody had. He didn't stop until he visited every single store in that shopping plaza, getting more and more frantic as he exited each one without locating his wife. No one had seen her. It's like she vanished in broad daylight. And to Mark, this made little to no sense. He was right out front. He never saw her leave. Mark knew she would never have taken off without speaking him, even if she was going to just go to another store. But he had to check each one just in case. Now we didn't know what to do. So we drove over to Ginger's parents' house for help and to tell them what happened. When he arrived, Ginger's sister Daniela and her mother, Denise, were sitting in a living room together. Mark explained that he and Ginger went to the Spycraft store, she went in, and then he never saw her. saw her come out. But Mark said that the people who work there said she bought her books and then she left a few minutes later. But it didn't make any sense. It was unlike Ginger to go off without speaking to

anyone first. She was very close to her family and neither her sister nor her mother had heard from her that day. They wanted to know more. They were pressing Mark for details about things like what did she have with her when she went inside the store? He told them she only took her ID, her wallet, and some cash. She left her purse behind with all of other items like her makeup. Those were back in the car. Now, that struck Danielle as odd. If Ginger was going to go off somewhere other than just running into that store, she wouldn't leave those things behind, especially her makeup.

That was something very important to her. She was a glam girl. She had a full face of makeup and she was dolled up anytime she went out. Everybody knew that. And Daniela knew this meant her sister didn't plan to disappear. And it really worried her. of course, this was a minor detail and it seemed meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Her sister was missing. And when George got back home, he walked in on this conversation and he

could tell something wasn't right. That's when his wife informed him, Ginger was missing. And he's like, what do you mean she's missing? He just saw her yesterday. Mark chimed in, re-tled the whole story of what happened that afternoon. And George is immediately concerned. He knew his daughter. He knew. She wouldn't just leave like this? Obviously, something was very wrong, and as a father, he had to get to the bottom of it, starting with going back to the last place anyone saw his daughter, the Spycraft Store. So he and Mark hopped in the car and sped back there hoping that it would still be open. George was thinking if any store would have cameras and a surveillance system, it's a spy store. At least they could get a video and they could see which way Ginger went when she walked out.

But once they pulled up, they were disappointed to see that the store was already closed. But then Mark recognized the man and the woman that he had seen earlier behind the counter. They were getting into their van with their baby. He called out to the couple and explained that he was the guy from earlier looking for his wife. The man introduced himself. He said, hi, I'm John Flowers. He explained he was the owner of the Spycraft store, and he owned a few of them. This one in Vegas, one in Arizona and one out in California.

And he and his wife and their infant child traveled back and forth each week to check on. each and every one of them. And they had already packed up. They locked up the store. They set the alarm and they were headed out for the weekend. They had to get a move on to avoid traffic. So he said that it was really sorry, but he would need to get back to them when he returned for business on Monday. That is so frustrating. But the owner told them he would be happy to pull up any of the video he has when he got back. Mark and George had no other choice but to wait. So they left and they tried to think of any logical reasons why Ginger would have gone off on her own. They went back to the house where the family sat around trying to piece together all the

information, knowing that if Ginger didn't turn up that night, they were going to go to the police the next morning. They tried to think of different scenarios that could have taken place in that very short time that Ginger had been inside that store. The only two options it could come up with was that either she ran away or she was taken. But why would she leave when she was just starting her new life? She seemed so happy. Just one day earlier, she was hugging her dad, George, goodbye, and saying, I love you, Daddy, and him telling her, I love you too, Ginger. And now she's gone. It just, it really didn't make sense. She had a brand new house, a new career. She was doing so well? But was she? Could there have been something that none of them were aware of? Something that would have caused Ginger to want to get away from it all. Maybe she wasn't going into the spy store for books after all. Maybe. Maybe. It was for some other item that could help her disappear. George remembered Ginger telling him she actually went to that same spy store just a few weeks earlier. But he couldn't remember her saying anything was unusual and he couldn't even remember what she bought while she was in there.

They concluded that she had to have been kidnapped somehow. By the next morning when the sun came up, Mark made that call to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. It was Saturday, April 5th. He told him his 20-year-old wife, Ginger Rios, was gone. He said she went missing from the SpyCraft store yesterday afternoon and that she just walked into that store and he never saw her come back out. But this is Mark's account of what happened. All along, George, Denise, and Daniela are hearing what Mark said happened to Ginger.

It's his version of events. Of course, George witnessed John Flowers, the owner of the SpyCraft store confirming that he saw his daughter come inside buy two books and leave. But how does anyone know that Ginger didn't make it back to the car before Mark did something to her? Police quickly want to understand everything Mark claimed to happen because this story wasn't like any that they'd heard before

and they'd heard plenty in a city that never sleeps. Detective Jeff Roskin was assigned to the case and initially the investigation was geared towards Ginger's well-being. There was no evidence pointing to anything sinister happening thus far. There was simply the question, where did she go? Ginger's family told the police there was a very little chance that she ran away. As most of you know from watching many true crime videos, the police have a series of steps that they have to take when any investigation begins.

They start by questioning those closest to the missing person, family, friends, and coworkers. They need to trace Ginger's last known interactions with anyone who she could have confided in. and they start to build a timeline of events before she disappeared. Every missing person's case starts with the possibility that they could have left on their own accord, especially when you're dealing with an adult, albeit in this case a young adult. Right away, Detective Roskin suspected Mark might have something to do with Ginger's disappearance, even though Ginger's parents were very quick to rule him out. It just seemed too much of a coincidence that he was the one to see her last. He was the one to

report her missing. The only one with a story as to what happened that day. No one else saw anything. So they want to dig into who Mark really is. But right now, the first thing that Detective Roskin does gather as much information about Ginger as possible by speaking to those who knew her the best. Her mom, her dad, and her little sister. When the detective sat down with the family, he could tell just how close they were. How much they adore Ginger. They thought the world of her. Ever in the pictures he was shown, he realized just how attractive Ginger was. She was a model, a dancer, performer. She worked at a hotel casino. That brings in a lot of people, a lot of strangers. Anyone could have had their eye on her.

Not to mention the fact her father also works in casinos. He's a black jack dealer at Harris, which was one of the most prominent casinos in Las Vegas at the time. And whenever you're dealing with money, there can be trouble. After speaking with family, they moved on to friends and co-workers who definitely shed some light on a few things they hadn't heard before. One was that Ginger was not as excited about her career as it may have seemed. On the contrary, a co-worker and friend said Ginger was taking diet pills to try to stay thin. It was a lot of pressure on her and it would cause mood swings. She was unhappy that she wasn't advancing fast enough in the industry. They also said that in their

opinion her marriage wasn't great. Not like it seemed. And they had only been married for five months and they already had issues that caused Ginger to have to leave and stay in a hotel by herself at one point. Not to mention the legal issues that Mark had with his ex-wife. Yes, he had been buried once before, but they also said that Ginger had recently complained that she thought she had a stalker. Well, that was all that Detective Roskin needed to hear because he already suspected Mark was hiding something. So he began to dig into his background and called him in for an interview. He point blank asked Mark, did you have anything to do with her disappearance? And he's like, no, absolutely not.

He said all he wanted to do was find his wife. He repeated everything he had already told the family. He had told 911. Everything that happened that Friday afternoon, his story never changed. And when Ginger's parents so adamant that it would be a waste of time and resources to look into Mark, Detective Roskin is doing all that he can to try to rule him out, but they're just born not. not any other leads. At this point, days are passing and there's no signs of Ginger. George is spending all day and all night driving the streets of Las Vegas looking for her,

calling her name as he searches down every street and still nothing. They wanted to rule out the possibility that Ginger could have left town on her own. So they began looking through her bank records and there was no activity. Plus, her most recent paycheck had not been cashed. That was a huge sign that she was most likely not on the run, but her family was still holding out hope that she was, that she just needed to get away, especially Mark. He stuck with the narrative that he believed she could have just decided to leave him, just leave him, their life and everything behind and never look back. But that made him look even more suspicious to investigators. He seemed to be trying very hard to steer them away from believing anything with foul play happened. He was even

conducting his own investigation, which they thought may be an attempt to throw them off. He was interviewing people himself, driving all over the town looking for Ginger, and he was spending a lot of time generating leads.