LAS VEGAS (AP) - A judge set bail at $1 million on Thursday for a defiant Las Vegas mother of three who is accused of shooting her 11-year-old son in what she told police had been planned as a murder-suicide.
Shavon Jacklein Carrillo, 31, flipped an obscene hand gesture at media and complained during her first court appearance that she didn’t want to be held in a jail isolation unit.
“I haven’t been able to talk to anybody,” Carrillo told Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman. “Can I get out of C2? I don’t know what that is, and I don’t like it there.”
The judge responded that it is up to jail administrators to decide an inmate’s accommodations.
Las Vegas police Officer Laura Meltzer, a jail spokeswoman, said inmates are typically housed in the secure jail unit for safety and medical evaluations.
Prosecutor Robert Daskas said police told him that Carrillo’s son remained in critical condition at a hospital and wasn’t expected to improve.
Carrillo, who also uses the name Shavon Aguilar, wasn’t asked to enter a plea to the charges against her - attempted murder with a weapon, child abuse with a weapon, and child endangerment causing mental harm.
The mental harm charge stems from allegations that Carrillo’s two younger daughters were also in the small bedroom where she is accused of shooting her son.
The judge appointed the Clark County public defender’s office to represent Carrillo and set a preliminary hearing for June 13.
Deputy Public Defender Gary Guymon, who spoke on Carrillo’s behalf in court, didn’t immediately respond to messages afterward. Guymon told the judge he didn’t believe Carrillo could post bail.
Police say Carrillo told investigators she was upset about the recent breakup of her 12-year marriage and wanted to kill herself and her three children. Carrillo and the children had moved in with her sister at a home in northwest Las Vegas where the shooting occurred Monday.
Police say Carrillo told investigators that she fetched a .22-caliber rifle, lay next to her son on a sleeping bag and told him she loved him as she shot him. Police said she also planned to shoot herself, but her brother-in-law heard the first shot and grabbed the rifle from her.
Carrillo later told police she attempted suicide earlier this year, used methamphetamine and thought she and her son would be together if they died together.
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