North Las Vegas gunman who killed 5 took ex-girlfriend hostage, police say

LAS VEGAS — The gunman who killed five people at a North Las Vegas apartment complex took his ex-girlfriend hostage after he fatally shot her daughter and the daughter’s girlfriend in her presence, police said Thursday.

Eric Adams, 48, killed himself in front of police officers about 12 hours later during a manhunt that ended in a Las Vegas neighborhood.

Meanwhile, police confirmed Thursday that Adams had a lengthy, quarter-century criminal history in Clark County, which included domestic violence cases.

At the time of the shooting late Monday in the 300 block of Casa Norte Drive, Adams had an active restraining order that prevented him from making contact with the woman he took hostage, police told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

North Las Vegas police alleged that Adams had beaten a former partner in early November and had choked her until she lost consciousness. By that time, he had been arrested at least 49 times and had a domestic violence conviction earlier that year, according to a criminal complaint.

“I’m going to kill you, you are going to be my sixth victim,” Adams allegedly said on Nov. 2.

“(The victim) stated that she loss consciousness for what she believed to be about a minute,” according to the arrest report. “When she awoke, she saw Adams next to her holding a ‘claw hammer’ threatening to kill her.”

The victim, who wasn’t identified in the report, crawled to a bathroom where she locked herself, police said. She reported the attack the next day.

Adams was arrested in March on three counts of domestic violence, including two felonies, North Las Vegas Justice Court records show. The case was apparently dismissed earlier this year.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the woman he took hostage was the victim in that case, but police said Thursday that her restraining order was set to expire next month.

Adams showed up to Kayla Harris’ ground-level apartment and started a fight with her mother, police said.

At some point, he shot Kayla Harris and Harris’ girlfriend, police said.

Upon hearing the commotion, an upstairs neighbor, a 20-year man who knew the downstairs resident, went over to “help the women,” police said.

“For unknown reasons, Adams shot the man inside the downstairs apartment,” police said.

Adams then went to his upstairs apartment where he shot the man’s 59-year-old grandmother, 40-year-old mother, and his 13-year-old sister, police said. The teenage girl remained in critical condition Wednesday.