Police: Las Vegas journalist dies in stabbing outside home

Fox 5 Vegas
 
Police: Las Vegas journalist dies in stabbing outside home
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas investigative reporter was stabbed to death outside his home and police are looking for a suspect, authorities said.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers found journalist Jeff German, 69, dead with stab wounds around 10:30 a.m. Saturday after authorities received a 911 call, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

German died of “multiple sharp force injuries” in a homicide, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner said Sunday.

It appears German was in an altercation with another person that led to the stabbing, which is believed to be an isolated incident, police said.

“We believe the altercation took place outside of the home,” Capt. Dori Koren, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said at a news conference. “We do have some leads. We are pursuing a suspect but the suspect is outstanding.”

Glenn Cook, the Review-Journal’s executive editor, said German had not communicated any concerns about his personal safety or any threats made against him to anyone in the newspaper’s leadership.

“The Review-Journal family is devastated to lose Jeff,” Cook said in a statement. “He was the gold standard of the news business. It’s hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.”

German joined the Review-Journal in 2010 after more than two decades at the Las Vegas Sun, where he was a columnist and reporter who covered courts, politics, labor, government and organized crime.

“When I first heard about this, I was shocked, saddened and angry,” VP of Exhibits and Programs at the Mob Museum Geoff Schumacher said.

Schumacher worked with German at the Las Vegas Sun. German got his start covering the mob, according to Schumacher.

“This was front page news for years in the 1970s and 80s, and Jeff was right in the middle of that with other reporters,” Schumacher recalled.

According to the Review-Journal, German held a master’s degree from Marquette University and was the author of the 2001 true-crime book “Murder in Sin City: The Death of a Las Vegas Casino Boss,” the story of the death of Ted Binion, heir to the Horseshoe Club fortune.

He was known for his stories about government malfeasance and political scandals and coverage of the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 others.

“Jeff was a tenacious reporter,” Schumacher said. “When he saw something important that needed to be exposed or to be revealed he was very aggressive. He knew who to call. He knew how to go about getting a story, and he had done it countless times in his career.”

“He broke big stories and developed impactful investigations across every part of Southern Nevada life,” Cook said. “In recent years, his reporting for the Review-Journal was responsible for significant policy changes and government reforms. He was fearless.”