Police are investigating the gruesome murder in downtown Las Vegas in which a 29-year-old man is accused of attacking another person on the city’s streets and eating part of the victim’s face, according to court documents.
According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Colin Ichiro Czech was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Sunday in connection with the Las Vegas Boulevard homicide on Sunday.
In a criminal complaint obtained by USA TODAY on Wednesday, the murder victim was identified as Kenneth Brown.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office will release the victim’s cause and manner of death after an autopsy, police said.
According to the lawsuit, Czech struck Brown, causing him to hit his head on the concrete and die.
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7-Eleven employee called 911 after seeing a man attack a customer
In a press release, police said officers responded around 4:45 a.m. Sunday morning after dispatch received a report of a physical altercation between a suspect and another man outside a business on South Las Vegas Boulevard.
The area is located near the Haunted Museum, north of the famous Little White Wedding Chapel.
According to court documents, a witness called 911 and reported that a suspect attacked a male customer in the 7-Eleven parking lot and “threw him to the ground.” The suspect was “banging his head on the concrete,” screaming and being paranoid, police wrote in the documents.
About 45 minutes later, the report continued, someone called 911 again to report that the same suspect was lying on top of another man at a nearby bus stop and “eating the man’s face on the ground.”
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The victim was missing an eye and an ear
Shortly thereafter, arriving officers found the suspect and victim at the bus stop and said the victim – later identified as Brown – was unresponsive and bleeding from his head.
According to court documents, officers saw the suspect, identified as Czech, kneeling next to Brown with “biological material in his hair, mouth and on his clothing.”
When officers questioned Czech at the scene, he said the victim attacked him, police wrote.
Brown was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, police wrote.
Court records show he suffered a large cut on his head and was missing an eye and an ear.
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Suspect said something had “taken possession of him”
According to court documents, after his arrest and detention, investigators asked Czech what he used to injure the victim and he allegedly responded, “My teeth.” Czech also told investigators he “used his teeth to eat the man’s eyeballs and ears.”
The document goes on to say that Czech was “in and out of consciousness” and told officers he was homeless and had been awake for “five days straight” at the time of the attack because something “possessed him.” Voices in his head, police said, told him to kill a person named “Drake” – a man he said he did not know.
Clark County Justice Court records show Czech remained jailed without bail Wednesday following his initial court appearance.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Las Vegas Police or Crime Stoppers.
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X at @nataliealund.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Colin Czech: Las Vegas cannibal killer suspected in Kenneth Brown death
