This shit right here don't make no sense, come on Vornelius man, damn!!!
Phillips' crime spree started with the slaying of Ivy Jean Shunstrom, also known as Ivy Jean Miller. The 40-year-old California woman was strangled and beaten by Phillips in a residential motel. Clark County prosecutor David Schwartz said Phillips unleashed a furious attack on the woman, leaving her with some 32 separate external injuries.
Phillips then stole a taxi cab at McCarran International Airport. A passenger in the taxi, Maryland tourist Joan Lewis, was in the back seat of the cab and was kidnapped by
Phillips.
"I said, `Can you let me out?' " Lewis, 62, said in court Wednesday. "In this ferocious, deep voice, he said, `No, you are not getting out.' "
Lewis said Phillips momentarily lost control of the vehicle as it exited the airport tunnel, and she jumped out of the speeding cab. She was run over by the vehicle and her leg was shattered by the attack, requiring multiple surgeries and skin grafts.
"There was nothing left of the leg but the bone," Lewis said. "I had to have eight operations, therapy. My leg will never be the same."
After the kidnapping, Phillips crashed into a sport utility vehicle and stole it from the female driver. He led police on a lengthy police chase through Boulder City and the Lake Mead Recreational Area before heading back to Las Vegas.
Kintzel was trying to stop Phillips by laying vehicle spikes on U.S. Highway 95 near Flamingo Road. Authorities said Phillips swerved the vehicle directly at Kintzel and ran him over.
The SUV was traveling at speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour. Kintzel suffered a severe head injury, a broken pelvis and multiple other internal injuries. Doctors had to remove a
portion of his brain and gave him virtually no chance to live.
But his colleagues at the Highway Patrol held a weeks-long vigil outside University Medical Center and Kintzel eventually regained consciousness. Clark County prosecutor David Schwartz termed Kintzel's survival "a miracle."
Kintzel walks with a limp and speaks with a speech impediment. He works part time in the Highway Patrol's public information office.
After Phillips' arrest, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Phillips. Defense attorneys argued that Phillips is mentally retarded(yeah right) and Gates agreed. Gates ruled the state could not seek the death penalty under the provisions of a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, which said the mentally retarded cannot be executed.
"We, as a civilized society, we do not kill retarded people," said defense attorney Alzora Jackson of the Clark County special public defender's office. "The message is lost."
Jackson said Phillips has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
Kintzel showed up in court Wednesday with at least three dozen fellow troopers who lined the rear of Gates' courtroom in a show of support. Kintzel said he has endured 22 surgeries and still takes speech therapy classes as a result of his injuries.
"There are some things I do where I act like a 4th grader," he said. "I will always act like a 4th grader. I have a brain injury. I will live with this for the rest of my life."
Kintzel expressed amazement he lived to see Phillips sentenced.
"How does a person survive that?" he said. "There's no way a person should survive."
He repeatedly told Gates that his main concern was not for his suffering, but for the family of Shunstrom. He never once referred to Phillips by his name, instead calling the defendant "the murderer."
"I only feel anger and violence toward one person," Kintzel said. "The murderer."
Phillips' sister, Larresha Alexander, said her brother appeared delusional before the rampage.
"I recall him speaking of devils and demons," she said.
Jackson asked Gates to show mercy by imposing a sentence of life with the possibility of parole.
But Schwartz pointed out that Phillips has at least three prior robbery convictions and, during a pre-sentencing interview, he expressed no remorse. During the interview, he was asked what prison sentence he thought he should receive.
"Twenty years," Schwartz quoted the defendant as saying. "I've got a family."
In doling out the sentence of life without parole, Gates said that Shunstrom had been "shown no kind of compassion." He also described Phillips as a lifelong criminal and drug user who would be a danger to society if ever released from prison.
Kintzel said afterward he was satisfied with the sentence.
"I'll never see him back on the streets again," Kintzel said. "The most important thing is what he did to Ivy."
Of Kintzel, Highway Patrol Chief Col. Dave Hosmer said:
"Bobby will always be a hero in the Highway Patrol."
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