Michael Connelly - Void Moon

The file was labeled FREELING, MAX. Karch opened it on the desk and spread the contents out. There were several police reports and handwritten pages of notes. There was also a packet of carefully folded and yellowed newspaper clippings. He opened these and read the one with the largest headline. It had been on the front page of the Las Vegas Sun six-and-a-half years before.

"HIGH-ROLLER ROBBER"

PLUNGES TO DEATH

BY DARLENE GUNTER

Sun Staff Writer A man authorities believe to have been responsible for a string of hotel room burglaries of high rollers at Strip casinos jumped to his death early Wednesday when faced with certain capture in a penthouse suite at the Cleopatra Resort and Casino.

The man's body crashed through the casino's signature atrium ceiling, sending glass showering on players at 4:30 A. M. The body landed on an unused craps table and the incident caused a momentary panic among those in the casino. However, authorities said no one was hurt in the incident other than the man who fell.

Metro police spokesmen said the suspect, identified as 34-year-old Maxwell James Freeling of Las Vegas, fell twenty floors after crashing through the window of a penthouse suite when he was confronted by a Cleopatra security agent who had set up a sting operation to nab him.

It was unclear late Wednesday why Metro police were not involved in the sting operation. Also unclear was why Freeling chose to jump through the window in a fatal effort to avoid capture.

Vincent Grimaldi, the casino's chief of security, was close-lipped about the incident but expressed relief that it occurred during a time when the casino was at its least crowded.

"We were just lucky it happened when it happened," Grimaldi said. "There weren't many people in the casino at the time. If it had happened during a high-occupancy period, who knows what could have resulted."

Grimaldi said the casino would stay open while repairs were made to the atrium ceiling. He said a small portion of the playing area would have to be roped off during the repairs.

After Freeling's death a 26-year-old woman was taken into custody at the hotel and turned over to police officers. She was arrested when she ran to Freeling's body in the casino after his fall. Authorities said that it became obvious by her reactions that she was "involved" with Freeling in some capacity.

"If she had just split we probably wouldn't have ever known about her," said Metro detective Stan Knapp. "But she ran to the guy and gave herself away."

The woman, whom police declined to identify until charges are filed, was being questioned throughout the day Wednesday at Metro headquarters.

Police said that Freeling is believed to have been the highly skilled thief who struck eleven times in the last seven months at casino hotels on the Strip. In each case, a casino guest was robbed of cash and jewels in his or her hotel room by a thief who entered while they slept.

The thief was dubbed the "High-Roller Robber" by police because the targets were all "players" – hotel guests who wagered and won large amounts of cash. The estimated take from the eleven capers was in excess of $300,000, according to police sources.

The thief apparently used several different means of entering the hotel rooms – from air-conditioning vents to gaining room keys from unsuspecting housekeepers and front-desk employees. None of the victims ever saw the thief, who came in after they had gone to sleep. A police source said the thief may have monitored his targets through hidden cameras but would not elaborate.

Karch stopped reading. Because it was the first article on the incident, it had the least information, the writer having woven several paragraphs out of a handful of facts. He went on to the next day's story.

ACCOMPLICE CHARGED IN

"HIGH-ROLLER" DEATH

BY DARLENE GUNTER

Sun Staff Writer A woman police say was the lookout for the so-called High-Roller Robber was charged Thursday with homicide in his death from a fall from the penthouse of the Cleopatra Resort and Casino.

Cassidy Black, 26, of Las Vegas, was charged under Nevada's felony-homicide law, which holds anyone who takes part in a criminal enterprise responsible for any death that occurs during the commission of the crime.

Although Black was waiting for Max Freeling in the lobby of the Cleopatra when he crashed through a penthouse window twenty stories above, she is still legally responsible for his death, said Clark County District Attorney John Cavallito.

Cavallito said Black, who was also charged with burglary and criminal conspiracy, could face 15 years to life in prison if convicted of the charges. She was being held without bail at the county jail.

"She was just as much a part of this incident and this crime spree as Freeling was," Cavallito said at a press conference. "She was a coconspirator and deserves to be and will be hit with the full weight of the law."

Freeling's death was ruled an accident and not suicide. He reportedly crashed through one of the windows of the penthouse suite in an effort to avoid capture.

More details on the dramatic events of early Wednesday morning were revealed by Cavallito and police investigators on Thursday.

The so-called High-Roller Robber had struck at Strip resorts eleven times in seven months, prompting the Las Vegas Casino Association to put up a $50,000 reward for the capture and conviction of a suspect.

Police said the thief had allegedly been targeting high rollers who took their winnings in cash with them to their rooms at the end of the day.

On Tuesday a private investigator hoping to claim the reward money contacted officials at the Cleopatra and told them he believed the High-Roller Robber was currently targeting a guest in the hotel and casino.

The investigator, Jack Karch, then agreed to serve as a decoy. When the target gambler, whose name was not released, retired for the evening, a switch was made and it was Karch – disguised as the gambler – who went to the penthouse suite.

Two hours after Karch turned out the lights in the suite and feigned sleep, Freeling entered the room through an air vent he had accessed through the ceiling of the penthouse housekeeping station. As Freeling entered the suite's bedroom he was surprised by Karch, who held him at gunpoint and used a two-way radio to call for help from hotel security agents waiting nearby.

"Before those agents could get to the room, Mr. Freeling inexplicably made a run for the window," Cavallito said. "He threw his body into it and crashed through and fell."

Cavallito said there was a small ledge below the window and Freeling may have believed that he could escape on it by moving along the facing of the building to a nearby cable used to lower a window-washing platform down the side of the building.

However, the momentum of Freeling's body going through the glass carried him past the narrow ledge and down. He crashed through the casino's signature atrium window, creating a panic among the few gamblers in the casino at the time. No one else was hurt.

Following Thursday's press conference Cavallito answered few questions, citing the ongoing investigation and prosecution of Black. He refused to reveal how it was that Karch, the private investigator, learned that Freeling was targeting a gambler at the Cleopatra.

Efforts to contact Karch for comment were unsuccessful and messages left on his office answering machine were not returned. As a young child Karch performed on occasion with his father, the now deceased magician known as "The Amazing Karch!" who was a mainstay at Strip casinos and hotels from the '50s to the early '70s.

The younger Karch was called "Jack of Spades" because of an illusion in which his father placed him in a locked mail sack in a locked crate and he would disappear and be replaced by a playing card – the Jack of spades.