Authorities said a man accused of killing a woman and a toddler in southwest Las Vegas confessed shootings and a preceding crime spree that began with a car theft in Arizona and ended with his arrest in Utah.
Ziaire Ham, 22, faces two counts of open murder and nine counts of discharging a gun into an occupied vehicle in connection with a March 2 shooting left 20-year-old Danaijha Robinson and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner dead.
Metropolitan Police Department Officers patrolling near West Starr Avenue and Dean Martin Drive that night stopped a gray Dodge Charger. Unbeknownst to the officers, the unidentified driver had a group of friends, including Robinson, Nhalani and the girl’s mother, traveling behind her in a Hyundai Accent before the traffic stop.
Police said the mother parked the Accent about a block away on Victoria Medici Street and Piazza Tuscano Drive, leaving Nhalani with Robinson and walking to help at the traffic stop. About an hour later, officers issuing citations heard rapid gunshots, then a pause, then two more shots, coming from a nearby neighborhood. Officers immediately responded to the shooting.
When officers arrived on Victoria Medici Street, they found Robinson in the Accent, holding Nhalani. Both had been shot and were unresponsive, police said.
Nhalani and Robinson were transported to University Medical Center, where they both died.
According to police, surveillance footage from nearby homes showed a black Mazda arriving in the neighborhood about 50 minutes after the Accent parked at the complex’s entrance. The Mazda was parked, and moments later, a man, later identified as Ham, exited, tried to open the Accent’s passenger-side door, then fired into the vehicle.
The report said that Ham also ran to the front of the Accent and fired additional rounds before getting back into the Mazda and fleeing.
Police said a records search of the Mazda’s license plate revealed that the vehicle had been reported stolen in Phoenix earlier in the day. The vehicle had arrived in Las Vegas about four hours before the shooting, the report said.
On March 3, the Ogden Police Department in Utah notified Metro that they had located the stolen Mazda and taken Ham into custody. He was booked into the Weber County Jail on multiple charges, including failure to stop or respond at the command of police, reckless driving, theft of a firearm or motor vehicle, and fugitive from justice.
While in custody, Ham told a Utah detective that he needed to speak with Las Vegas law enforcement, and Metro detectives traveled to interview him.
Ham said that after his graveyard shift at a grocery store in Phoenix, he began roaming the neighborhood near his brother’s home, where he had recently been kicked out, according to police. It was then, he said, that he stole the Mazda from a woman who had left the vehicle running outside her home. Ham told police he drove to his mother’s home in North Las Vegas afterward.
While at the North Las Vegas home, Ham had gotten into a fight with his mother’s boyfriend and pointed a gun at the man and his mother. He left after she threatened to call the police, but he said in the report that he believed someone was following him.
His mother later told police that it was the first time she had seen him in years.
“After Ziaire left his mother’s house, he claimed people were following him in a red Mercedes and that the vehicle was connected to those who were after him,” the report said.
Ham said that he drove to the area of the shooting, and when he saw the Accent, he “knew it did not belong there.” He tried to see who was inside, he told police, but the person inside would not get out, so he fired into the vehicle.
During an interview with detectives, Ham said he was unaware a child was in the car. Police said he became hysterical when told about Nhalani’s death.
“Ziaire uttered, ‘I didn’t mean to kill that person. I killed a child, I killed a child,” according to the report.
Police said Ham also initially claimed to have sold the gun in Las Vegas, but then recanted, saying he left it in a bush in front of a blue house with a bay window.
Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.
