The grisly crime happened a month ago and has shocked the Las Vegas area.
Three people in Nye County, Nevada, have been arrested and charged with the murder of a 27-year-old man who cops say they tortured for hours and then threw him off a cliff to his death, according to reports.
Roy Jaggers of Las Vegas was found dead on August 1 at the bottom of a cliff in Cathedral Canyon, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
“A man was in the canyon when his body was dumped and disrupted their process, and called 911 immediately,” a representative for the Nye County Sheriff’s Office told Inside Edition Digital.
The area was an abandoned roadside attraction that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Jaggers was visiting his mother and the last person she said he saw him with was Heather Pate, 27, according to News3LV.
Just 36 hours after Jaggers’ body was found, police arrested Pate, her boyfriend Kevin Dent, 36, and their friend Brad Mehn, 37. After executing a search warrant on Pate's home in Las Vegas, detectives say they found evidence connected to Jaggers' death, News3LV reported.
Cops say Jaggers was tortured with a blowtorch, knives, baton and ax. Cops also say he was stripped of his clothes and was forced to walk off a cliff in Cathedral Canyon, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Las Vegas Review Journal.
An autopsy says that Jaggers’ cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.
Detectives say the motive for the killing is that Pate claims Jaggers hurt her child, allegedly leading her and Dent to lure the victim to their apartment where cops say he was beaten. Cops say he was taken to Nye County where they met up with Mehn, who allegedly tortured Jaggers for many hours.
Cops allege that after Jaggers was tortured, he was forced to strip naked and was thrown off a cliff at Cathedral Canyon and was later shot.
"They met Mehn who led them to an area in the desert where they tortured Jaggers over multiple hours, utilizing numerous different weapons," Nye County Sheriff's Captain David Boruchowitz said in a video statement. "After they finished torturing Jaggers, they drove him to Cathedral Canyon, approximately 25 miles away, where they threw him off the cliff into the gorge where they subsequently shot at him numerous times, ultimately killing him."
All three suspects are being held without bail on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, battery with substantial bodily harm and conspiracy to commit murder. They are due in court Thursday morning for a preliminary hearing. No pleas have been entered thus far, the Nye County District Attorney’s Office told Inside Edition Digital.
Inside Edition Digital has reached out to the attorneys representing each of the accused for comment and has not heard back.
A GoFundMe page has been set up for the family of the victim.
