Police are combining physical evidence with Juan Carlos Orona’s statements as three murder charges move toward a preliminary hearing.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — When officers entered an apartment on O’Bannon Drive on Sept. 1, they found three people dead and 10 spent 9 mm cartridge cases, beginning an evidence trail that prosecutors are now using in a triple-murder case against Juan Carlos Orona.
Orona, 29, is accused of killing his girlfriend, Nohani Flores Osuna, 41, her daughter, Maiya Deleon Flores, 16, and her son, Noah Morales Flores, 7. The case combines physical evidence from the apartment, Orona’s call to police, statements attributed to him during a homicide interview and information investigators say they received from his father. Orona faces three counts of open murder with use of a deadly weapon and 10 counts of discharging a firearm within a structure. He is being held without bail and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Oct. 21.
The timeline began publicly at about 7:10 p.m. Sept. 1. According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Orona contacted police while at the Southeast Area Command and said he had shot his girlfriend and her two children. He provided the address where he said the shooting had happened, an apartment in the 5100 block of O’Bannon Drive. Officers were dispatched to the residence as well as to the police facility. Orona was detained without police having to search for him, and officers noticed he had an apparent gunshot injury.
Police sent Orona to a hospital for treatment before booking him. His wound was not considered life-threatening. Lt. Robert Price later described it as superficial and located in the stomach area, but authorities did not determine publicly in the immediate aftermath how it happened. That question remains separate from the central evidence against Orona. At the apartment, officers forced entry and found Flores Osuna, her teenage daughter and her young son with apparent gunshot injuries. Emergency medical personnel pronounced all three dead at the scene.
The 10 cartridge cases recovered from the residence correspond with the 10 firearm-discharge counts prosecutors filed in addition to the murder charges. Publicly available reporting does not provide a complete forensic account assigning particular rounds to particular victims or establishing the exact order of the shootings. That distinction is important because the existence of cartridge cases establishes that shots were fired but does not by itself explain the sequence, intent or circumstances of each shot. Those questions are central to the criminal proceedings that remain ahead.
Investigators also obtained an account of what happened earlier that day from Orona himself. According to the arrest report, Orona said he had been dating Flores Osuna for about three to six months. He had helped her obtain the apartment and had paid rent. Before the shootings, he told detectives, he saw her vehicle at the same location as a vehicle belonging to a former boyfriend. Orona later drove to the apartment and confronted Flores Osuna about whether she had been seeing the other man.
The arrest report says Flores Osuna admitted having a sexual relationship with the former boyfriend and told Orona the other man was a better sexual partner. That reported comment became a prominent part of early coverage of the case, but it remains part of Orona’s account to police about the argument. It is not an independently established explanation for the killings, and investigators have not said that a single remark by itself provides a complete motive. What follows in the report is Orona’s claim that his memory failed at the point the confrontation escalated.
Orona said he “blacked out” and later became aware that he was standing in a bathroom with his Glock 9 mm handgun, according to the arrest report. He said Flores Osuna and both children were on the floor. When detectives asked about the shooting, Orona reportedly did not deny responsibility but said he could not recall firing the shots. He told police he had partial memories of Flores Osuna and the children yelling at him or coming toward him, but the report says he could not provide a full account of what happened during the period he claimed not to remember.
His explanation for possessing the handgun became another detail in the investigative record. Orona told detectives that he kept the gun for protection because he was concerned Flores Osuna’s former boyfriend could come to the apartment and harm him. Police reports identified that man only by a first name. Authorities have not accused the former boyfriend of participating in the shooting, being present when it occurred or threatening Orona that night. The weapon described by Orona and the caliber of the cartridge cases found in the apartment are both part of the evidence publicly reported in the case.
The investigation also looked to what Orona allegedly said immediately after the deaths. His father told detectives that Orona contacted family members and said he had hurt his girlfriend and her children, according to the arrest report. The father said Orona told him that he had lost control after confronting Flores Osuna. Rather than keeping Orona away from police, his father told investigators that he instructed his son to surrender and be accountable. Orona’s father and brother then drove him to the Southeast Area Command, according to reports based on the police records.
That sequence means police did not first identify Orona through a neighborhood search, witness description or later forensic match. By the department’s account, he came to law enforcement and reported the shooting. Police have nevertheless continued treating the matter as a homicide investigation rather than relying solely on his statements. The department’s initial release asked anyone with information about the deaths to contact homicide detectives. Price said on the night of the shooting that investigators were still working to learn whether the family had any prior documented history of domestic violence.
The court has already made preliminary decisions about detention, but not guilt. At a Sept. 3 hearing, a Las Vegas judge found probable cause supporting Orona’s arrest and ordered him held without bail. During a later appearance on Sept. 9, another judge reviewed the accusations and ensured that Orona had legal representation. Orona said he could not afford a private attorney, so the court appointed a public defender. His attorney declined to comment to the Las Vegas Review-Journal after that hearing.
The three victims were formally identified by the Clark County coroner several days after the shooting. Maiya attended Bonanza High School, according to the school district. Neighbors told local reporters that the family had lived at the apartment complex only a short time. Their relatives have attended court but have largely declined to speak publicly. Those facts offer little insight into the final hours inside the home, leaving the evidentiary record — scene findings, police interviews, court filings and eventual testimony — to carry much of the public reconstruction.
The Oct. 21 preliminary hearing will not require prosecutors to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, it is a stage at which the state must establish enough evidence for the felony prosecution to proceed. Orona’s reported statements, the cartridge cases, the 911 call, the scene itself and testimony concerning what he allegedly told relatives could all become relevant as the case develops. The defense will have opportunities to challenge the state’s evidence and its interpretation.
Still unresolved is how prosecutors will connect the physical evidence from the apartment with Orona’s statements about what he remembers and what he says he cannot recall. The 10 spent cartridge cases, his reported surrender and the accounts investigators gathered afterward provide pieces of the case, but their legal weight has yet to be tested. That process is expected to begin with the preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 21.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.