Zane Floyd

Zane Michael Floyd (born September 20, 1975)^[1] is a convicted mass murderer who is most notorious for killing four people and injuring another in a Las Vegas, Nevada supermarket on June 3, 1999. After pleading guilty to the murders, Floyd was sentenced to death by a Clark County jury.

Background

After attending high school, Floyd enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was honorably discharged, but was told that he was not welcome to reenlist due to his heavy drinking.^[2]

The Massacre

On June 3, 1999, at approximately 5:16 in the morning, Floyd entered an Albertson's supermarket in Las Vegas and opened fire on random individuals within the store with a shotgun. Wearing Marine Corps camouflage and with a shaved head, Floyd picked his victims at will in a calm manner.

Floyd shot Thomas Darnell in the back twice, killing him. Immediately after, he also killed Carlos Chuck Leos and Dennis Troy Sargent. Floyd then encountered Zachary T. Emenegger, who fled from Floyd when he saw the gunman pointing the shotgun in his direction, beginning a bizarre sequence of near death encounters with the deranged gunman. Diving under a produce table, Emenegger avoided Floyd's initial gunfire for 15 seconds, but ultimately was shot in the upper-chest region resulting in a punctured lung. Floyd then shot Emenegger again. Believing his victim was dead, Floyd callously whispered, "Yeah, you're dead," and proceeded to continue searching the store. Eventually, Floyd discovered Lucille Alice Tarantino in the rear of the store and fatally shot her in the head at point-blank range. Floyd then walked back toward Emenegger who was still alive, ironically, because he had been pretending to be dead after getting shot for the second time. Now, however, thinking that Floyd was gone, Emenegger attempted to get up and go for help. In another bizarre twist of fate, Emenegger collapsed back onto the ground from a lack of energy as Floyd simultaneously rounded the corner of the aisle on which Emenegger was now trapped. Emenegger's collapsing a mere split-second prior to Floyd rounding the corner was purely incidental, however, owing its cause to Emenegger's rapidly deteriorating physical condition rather than a strategic re-continuing of pretending to be dead . In fact, Emenegger would later recount that he was completely unaware that Floyd had even made his way back to that particular side of the store, until Emenegger heard him walking back in that direction, just after he (Emenegger) had collapsed. Floyd initially walked past Emenegger's motionless body and started to exit the store but abruptly stopped, and doubled back to once again ensure Emenegger was dead. After performing one final examination of what he ultimately assumed was Emenegger's lifeless corpse, Floyd finally fled the store where he was confronted by Las Vegas police officers who eventually took him into custody after an 8-minute standoff in the parking lot outside the grocery store. In total, Floyd had shot seven shotgun shells, killing four people and critically wounding another. Floyd was out of the supermarket approximately seven minutes from the time he entered. Zachary T. Emenegger, although critically wounded, emerged from the horrific ordeal as the sole survivor out of all Floyd's victims.

Arrest

Floyd exited the supermarket's north doors to meet the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, who had been called by an employee who had been upstairs and believed there was a robbery in progress.^[3] Without exchanging any gunfire, Floyd ran back into the supermarket and exited through the west doors of the supermarket, in hopes of avoiding the police outside. When he noticed that the complex was surrounded by officers, Floyd threatened to kill himself, pointing the shotgun to his head. After an eight-minute standoff, police convinced Floyd to surrender. They immediately arrested him on charges of murder; he confessed that he had killed all of the people inside the supermarket.

Trial

After pleading guilty, Floyd went to trial under the judgment of a Nevada state jury. The jury then delivered the maximum verdict: four consecutive death penalties.^[4] The jury also ordered restitution totaling more than $180,000 dollars. Per Nevada law, Floyd's death penalty is automatically appealed, and it currently sits in the federal court system.

See also

• List of United States death row inmates

References