Ethan Goin admitted killing Vergel Guintu after leaving high school during first period, and sentencing is set for March 24.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — A 21-year-old Las Vegas man has pleaded guilty in the 2021 stabbing death of a Summerlin resident after prosecutors said he left high school during first period, entered a stranger’s home and returned to class after the attack.
The plea closed a case that drew attention in Las Vegas because of both the violence and the age of the defendant at the time. Ethan Goin was 16 when police said he stabbed 48-year-old Vergel Guintu in the neck inside Guintu’s home on Kenton Place on Aug. 27, 2021. The case then moved slowly through court for years as judges weighed Goin’s competency to stand trial. He entered the guilty plea on Feb. 10, and a sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 24 in Clark County District Court.
Prosecutors said the killing happened late in the morning after Guintu had dropped off his 9-year-old child at school and returned home. According to police accounts described in court and in the arrest paperwork, Guintu, his wife and his mother-in-law were inside the house when someone made noise near a window. Guintu went to check. Moments later, relatives found him badly wounded near the stairs. Antonia Reyes, Guintu’s mother-in-law, later testified at a preliminary hearing that she saw a figure dressed in black moving through the house. “I saw the killer run to my room and I screamed and screamed,” Reyes said through a translator. Police said the intruder fled through a window and left the home within minutes.
Investigators later said the attack appeared random. Court records and news reports said Goin left Palo Verde High School during first period, went into the neighborhood and chose a house before the stabbing. Police said Guintu’s wife saw an intruder in dark clothing and a mask pass by after her husband was attacked. A neighbor then told detectives that a suspicious young man had been seen nearby shortly before the 911 call, wearing black, carrying a backpack and showing red marks on his arms. Authorities said the witness described a white male with blond hair. Detectives later noted that blond hair recovered from Guintu’s body during the autopsy matched that description. Some details of what happened in the home remain unresolved in public records, including whether anything specific triggered the confrontation once the intruder entered.
The arrest came the next day. Police said officers saw Goin getting into a ride-hailing vehicle while dressed in black and carrying a black backpack. Investigators said he first cooperated, but then ran when they asked about blood on his boots. Police said he was found hiding in a parking structure at Summerlin Hospital and was arrested there. During questioning, detectives said, Goin told them he had left school because he was being bullied. He said parts of the day were “a blur,” but officers wrote that he acknowledged entering the home and suggested he knew something terrible had happened there. Police also said he later told them he found a knife with blood on it in his bag after he got home and was on his way to hide it when officers moved in.
Those early statements became a central part of the case. Prosecutors said Goin told detectives he had “done something bad” at the residence, language later repeated in coverage of the plea. Police also wrote in the arrest report that he did not want to explain his actions because he believed “his life would be over.” Investigators said he searched online for “Summerlin News” while in custody and learned Guintu had died. The public record does not fully answer why Guintu’s home was selected, and authorities have not publicly pointed to any prior link between the two men. That absence of a known connection shaped the way the case was described from the start: a daytime killing inside a family home, carried out by a teenager who then went back to school before police identified him.
Guintu’s death also left a family and neighborhood trying to make sense of a brief, violent intrusion into an ordinary school-day morning. He had returned home after the school drop-off and was in the kitchen before he heard the noise that drew him toward the break-in point, according to police and prosecutors. His wife was upstairs, and Reyes was elsewhere in the house. When Reyes testified in 2021, she described seeing her son-in-law on the floor with his cellphone still in his hand and blood pouring from his neck. The testimony added personal detail to a case that had first been laid out in stark terms in police paperwork. It also underscored how quickly the attack unfolded in a quiet west Las Vegas neighborhood where residents said nothing like it had happened before.
The legal path that followed was unusually long. Goin, who was charged as an adult, initially faced murder with a deadly weapon and burglary counts. In September 2021, a Las Vegas justice of the peace found enough evidence to send the case toward trial. A year later, District Judge Christy Craig ruled that Goin was not competent to stand trial and ordered him committed to Lake’s Crossing Center, Nevada’s forensic psychiatric facility, for treatment aimed at restoring competency. Court coverage later showed that the question of competency remained a major issue in the case for years. Goin had also drawn separate allegations while in custody after police said he attacked two Clark County Detention Center officers in June 2023, leading to attempted murder and battery charges in that case.
By early 2026, however, the homicide case was again moving toward trial. Courtroom reports said Goin had been found competent to stand trial in March 2025 after repeated evaluations and restoration efforts. His murder trial had been expected to begin in March 2026, but the plea changed that schedule. On Feb. 10, before Clark County District Judge Carli Kierny, Goin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon. Court reports said the prosecution and defense told the judge they had reached an agreement calling for an 18-year prison term. During the hearing, Goin said he understood the proceedings, was entering the plea voluntarily after a settlement conference and had a 10th-grade education. His mother, according to courtroom reporting, left the gallery upset after he entered the plea.
The plea spared Guintu’s relatives and other witnesses from testifying at a full trial nearly five years after the killing. It also shifted the next stage of the case to sentencing, where the judge is expected to formally address the agreed resolution and hear any statements from the lawyers, the defendant and the victim’s family. The separate jail-assault case was not resolved by the murder plea, and public reporting has treated it as a distinct matter. For the homicide case, the broad outline is no longer disputed: prosecutors said Goin left school, entered a stranger’s home, killed Guintu and went back to campus before police tracked him down the next day. What remains for the court is the final sentence and any record the judge makes about the plea agreement on March 24.
Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.