During the closing arguments of the murder trial of Brad Mehn, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jason Gunnell presented the jury with a chilling display of the tools and weapons believed to have been used in the torture and killing of 27-year-old Roy Jaggers near Pahrump in 2021. Wearing blue gloves, Gunnell systematically placed each item, including a belt, a baton, a bayonet, a stapler, a pistol, an axe, and finally, a shotgun, on a table before the jury. Prosecutors alleged that Mehn, along with his ex-girlfriend, Heather Pate, and her current boyfriend, Kevin Dent, intentionally brought these weapons to carry out their gruesome acts. According to the prosecution, after luring Jaggers to Pate’s apartment in Las Vegas, the trio viciously beat him before taking him to a Pahrump gun range for further torture. Ultimately, they forced Jaggers to walk off a cliff in a remote canyon, where he was found dead.
Pate and Dent had already pleaded guilty and testified against Mehn during the trial, hoping for reduced charges. The prosecutor argued that while all three were involved in the violence, it was Mehn who owned the weapons and shot Jaggers multiple times with the shotgun, emphasizing that it was a deliberate act meant to send a message. Jaggers’ lifeless body was discovered at the bottom of Cathedral Canyon, a roadside attraction in the Nye County desert, about 60 miles from Las Vegas. The motive behind the crime, as stated by the Nye County sheriff’s office, was Pate and Dent’s belief that Jaggers had harmed one of Pate’s children, although no evidence supporting this claim was found by the police.
During the trial, prosecutors presented body-worn camera footage of Mehn’s confession, in which he admitted to causing Jaggers’ death because he believed Jaggers was a pedophile. The defense argued that Mehn’s confession was coerced by the Nye County Sheriff’s Captain, and Mehn claimed that Pate was the one who had shot Jaggers. Mehn’s attorney suggested that if the jury were to find Mehn guilty, it should be for manslaughter rather than murder, as he believed Mehn acted out of a crime of passion due to his own history of sexual abuse. The jury is set to begin deliberations on Tuesday morning to determine Mehn’s fate.
