LAS VEGAS — A Nevada man is accused of strangling his roommate and living in their Las Vegas home for more than two months before family members discovered her body in an upstairs closet, authorities said.
George Anthony Bone, 31, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with open murder, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He is accused of killing Beverly Ma, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced on Thursday.
Victim Beverly Ma's family stopped by the southwest valley home on Wednesday when they found her body in a closet. Police said suspect George Bone was "afraid of going back to jail … for being found with a dead body." https://t.co/Wd59sryaPG
— Las Vegas Review-Journal (@reviewjournal) July 29, 2023
In a news release, police said they received a telephone call at about 2:27 p.m. PDT about a report of a deceased woman found inside a residence at 5437 Railroad River Ave.
Ma’s relatives had gone to the residence because they had not seen her in person since April, the Review-Journal reported.
Family members called 911 and told the dispatcher that Ma’s body “was in the closet and had been there for two months,” KLAS-TV reported, citing court documents. Police found Ma’s body in the master bedroom closet shortly after arriving at the residence, according to KVVU-TV.
Police said that Bone allegedly said that in early May, he found Ma dead in the closet with a fabric belt around her neck, the Review-Journal reported. Upon further investigation, police said that Bone’s description of how Ma was found “had inconsistencies,” and evidence from the closet contradicted Bone’s claim that Ma killed herself, according to the newspaper.
“I was afraid of going back to jail … for being found with a dead body,” Bone allegedly told police.
Ma’s family said they last received a text message from her telephone on June 22, stating that she would be unable to attend a July 4 celebration in Washington, KVVU reported. A family member texted Ma again on July 2 but never heard back from her, according to the television station.
According to the arrest report, Bone allegedly admitted to ordering more than 170 items from Amazon under Ma’s name, the Review-Journal reported. He also allegedly set the air conditioner thermostat to 60 degrees, believing that it would limit the number of flies in the residence.
Bone also left a cooler by the closet, allegedly telling police that he wanted there to alert him in case Ma rose from the dead, which he had seen in “The Grudge,” a horror movie, according to the newspaper.
On Wednesday, one of Ma’s relatives sent an air conditioning repairman to fix the unit because the electric bill was high, KVVU reported. When no one answered, the family member gave the technician the access code to the residence and he went inside, according to the television station.
The technician called for Ma but received no response, KVVU reported. That is when family members came to the home and found her body, according to the arrest report.
According to the Review-Journal, Bone is a registered sex offender in Nevada after pleading guilty in 2013 to attempted lewdness with a child under 14. Bone took an Alford plea on the charge, KLAS reported. An Alford plea occurs when a defendant accepts that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him or her but does not admit guilt, according to the television station.
He was sentenced to two to eight years in state prison, court records show.
Bone allegedly told police that he had known Ma since he was in high school and became romantically involved with her after he was released from prison in 2019, KVVU reported.
The couple began living together in July 2022, according to the arrest report.
