Circus Circus Casino Hotel Double Murderer Sentenced to Life in Prison

A 37-year-old man was found guilty this week of murdering two Vietnamese tourists in 2018 inside a Las Vegas casino hotel room.

Julius Trotter (pictured) was accused of carrying out the June 2018 fatal stabbings on Sang Nghia and Khuong Nguyen in a Circus Circus hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip. On Monday, a Las Vegas jury found him guilty on two counts each of murder with a deadly weapon, robbery, and burglary.

Trotter always claimed innocence throughout a lengthy six-year legal case.

“Even though six years have been passing by, the three of us still cannot overcome that monumental loss,” said Nghia’s daughter, Yen My Nguyen, speaking in court this week through a translator. 

 “We still carry the endless sorrow when we see the other families have all their members together, and they receive the complete love of moms and dads. But not us.”

The Murders

Trotter has been found guilty of murdering Nghia and Nguyen in their Circus Circus Casino hotel room in 2018. The Vietnamese tour guides were stabbed to death with multiple injuries. 

Trotter was identified on surveillance footage in an elevator at the Las Vegas Strip casino resort around the area and time of the crime. 

Investigators followed his path that morning through security footage. Around 45 minutes after the murders took place, Trotter was seen returning to his room with his shirt inside out. He then checked out early, at around 4.a.m, despite having the room booked until the morning. 

After leaving Circus Circus, he went to a nearby ATM outside the property, deposited cash, and then went to the Palms Casino Resort, where he gambled until around midday before leaving Las Vegas. 

Prosecutors said that Trotter may have murdered Nghia and Nguyen after being caught entering their room looking for valuables to steal. Adding to this account of events, investigators determined that the Circus Circus room’s lock was broken, allowing Trotter to enter the room while the victims were inside. 

Las Vegas criminals often check whole floors of casino hotels for rooms that haven’t been properly locked before ransacking them. Back in 2018, the incident sparked plenty of accusations that casinos weren’t doing enough to stop this kind of theft, and in this case, murder. 

Trotter was arrested days after the murders in Chino, California. He led police on a car chase before being apprehended. He was on probation at the time for a prior case of resisting a police officer with a weapon. 

Police found him in possession of a backpack containing items belonging to the two deceased, as well as a pair of shoes with blood from the victims and Trotter’s DNA on them. 

The Trial 

Trotter maintained his innocence throughout the six years of legal proceedings. The case was delayed by the pandemic, and then saw an extensive variety of expert and relevant witnesses which took several months to complete. 

Trotter claimed that he was given the stolen items, including similar shoes that surveillance footage shows him wearing on the night of the crime. He says a friend who was known to fence stolen items gave them to him in a stairwell at Circus Circus. 

He admitted he was wearing shoes of the same type on that night. But he says they were not his, as he wears size 13 – not the size 11 found with the victims’ blood on in his possession. 

The defence also argued that the attack on the victims was more violent than would be expected from an interrupted burglary. Nguyen and Nghia were stabbed in various parts of their body, including their genitals. Some wounds came after their death, coroners reports confirmed. 

An expert witness called by the defence said that this indicated a targeted attack. Trotter’s attorneys suggested that Nghia, who is married, may have been having an affair, and that this was the motive for the actual killer.

Relatives of the victims and the prosecution hotly contested those claims. A colleague who was also in Las Vegas on the tour said Nguyen was openly gay, and testified to his character. 

Nghia’s husband also testified in court, saying that his wife had openly told him about sharing a room with Nguyen due to a mixup on their scheduled tour. 

The prosecution then pointed out the DNA evidence, the security footage, and the possession of the victim’s stolen and bloody goods as solid evidence of Trotter’s guilt. 

The Sentence 

In the end, a Las Vegas jury of 12 found Trotter guilty this week after two hours of deliberation. Sentence hearings began on Wednesday, with the prosecution seeking the death penalty. 

The victims’ colleagues and families testified in court before the jury.  

“To me, losing a person that you trust and love, nothing else matters,” said Hung Nguyen, Nghia’s husband, speaking through a translator. 

 “House, diamonds, whatever you possess in your whole life — meaningless. All we need is the love that we lost.”

None of the families of the victims explicitly called for Trotter to be sentenced to death in their statements. In the end, the jury disagreed with prosecutors, and decided to spare Trotter from capital punishment. Instead, he will serve life with no possibility of parole.

“I think everyone is grateful that Mr. Trotter was given a life sentence,” said defense lawyer Lisa Rasmussen, speaking to The Associated Press. “The jury took the death penalty off the table themselves.”

Nevada currently has 63 people on its death row, with the last actual execution held in 2006.