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Gunman spared pregnant lawyer during fatal shooting, document says

David Ferrara, Las Vegas Review-Journal on

Published in News & Features

LAS VEGAS — A court document filed hours after a Las Vegas attorney and his wife were fatally shot in a Summerlin law office describes the moments leading up to the killings.

Five minutes after a deposition began inside a conference room Monday morning, attorney Joe Houston “stood up, had a very glazed and rattled look in his eyes, pulled out a handgun and shot (Dennis) Prince four times,” according to the document.

Another lawyer in the room, identified as Shannon Wilson, “immediately ducked and hid under the conference room table,” attorney Michele Lobello wrote in the filing.

“She explained to me that she asked Mr. Houston please not to hurt her baby as she is pregnant,” lobello continued. “She explained to me that Mr. Houston allowed her to leave the conference room and following her quick departure and taking cover elsewhere in the office, she heard additional shots fired.”

Dennis Prince, a veteran trial lawyer, and his wife, Ashley, were killed.

Houston then turned the gun on himself, according to authorities and others familiar with the attack. He had been representing his son, Dylan Edward Houston, in a yearslong custody battle with his former wife, now known as Ashley Prince.

According to the court document filed Monday by Lobello, Dylan Houston was not present at the deposition. The document states that Katherine Houston was being deposed at the time but did not describe her relationship to the case.

Court records show that Dylan Houston, who also is a lawyer in Las Vegas, filed for divorce from Ashley in October 2021 after a four-year marriage.

A divorce decree issued a month later granted the pair joint physical and legal custody of two children. But custody of the children, now 5 and 4, remained in dispute.

Dennis Prince, along with attorneys from the firm Jones & Lobello, represented Ashley, who was identified as Ashley Prince in court records as recently as last month.

Police said the shooting occurred at about 10 a.m. Monday inside the offices of Prince Law Group, a personal injury, insurance law and commercial law firm on the fifth floor of the City National Bank Building at 10801 W. Charleston Blvd.

 

Seven people were taking part in the deposition, police said, including a court reporter.

Within hours of the killings, lawyers for Ashley Prince filed an emergency motion for sole custody of the children.

In that document, Lobello wrote that Dylan Houston’s actions around the time of the shooting suggested that he “knew or must have known of the intentions of his father prior to the commission of these heinous acts.”

In a response, he denied the allegations.

“The motivation of the tragedy of April 8, 2024, is unknown to anyone but Joseph W. Houston himself. The Defense’s suggestion that this was a ‘planned attack’ with the Plaintiff is insulting and quite speculative,” Dylan Houston wrote.

Lobello wrote that Dylan Houston attempted to pick up his children from school after the shooting “in the middle of the school day, despite the details as to Defendant’s status of dead or alive not being made public at this time.” Ashley Prince was the defendant in the divorce case.

Dylan Houston responded to the emergency motion by writing that his “actions following the shooting is not indicative of a co-conspirator as the Defense callously would like the Court to believe, rather that of a concerned father wanting to protect, console, love and support his children from any unnecessary discussion regarding this tragedy.”

A public relations firm released the following statement Tuesday on behalf of the Houston family:

“Our family is in a state of profound shock and sadness at yesterday’s events. We ask for prayers and privacy as we try to navigate the coming days. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is still conducting their investigation and as that continues, speculation about details of the incident only serves to add trauma to our already grieving and overwhelmed families. We have full faith in Metro’s efforts and will leave all future comment to them as their investigation unfolds.”

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