SALAMANCA — The suspect wanted for a fatal stabbing in the city of Salamanca and currently incarcerated near Las Vegas is 22-year-old Brandon Francis, Nevada authorities told the Olean Times Herald Wednesday.
Officials with the Henderson (Nev.) Police Department’s Office of Public Information said that Francis is being held in the Henderson Detention Center on an outstanding extraditable warrant from Cattaraugus County for this past weekend’s murder in Salamanca.
Francis is accused of fleeing to Henderson, about 15 miles southeast of Las Vegas, after allegedly fatally stabbing Juwaan Holt, 22, of Bailey Avenue in Buffalo, whose body was discovered Saturday morning at a Salamanca residence.
The Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office had declined to identify Francis, which Sheriff Timothy Whitcomb said Monday was being done “for investigative purposes.” Whitcomb did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday evening.
However, the sheriff’s office did release more details on the stabbing via a press release Wednesday morning, including that the suspect is a 22-year-old male.
Deputies also for the first time revealed that the suspect, confirmed by Henderson police to be Francis, is charged with second-degree murder, a class A-1 felony. Those convicted of second-degree murder in New York state face a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Also confirmed by the sheriff’s office Wednesday was what neighbors told the Times Herald Tuesday evening: The killing occurred at 357 Broad St., an apartment building located near the corner of Broad Street and Pimlico Avenue.
The owners of the property, according to Cattaraugus County property records, are Philip and Heidi Jimerson, who live elsewhere in the city. They did not immediately answer a knock on their door Tuesday night or a phone call to their home Wednesday.
There was also no answer Tuesday night at 357 Broad St.
According to the sheriff’s office on Wednesday, the suspect stabbed Holt in the abdomen at 357 Broad St., resulting in Holt’s death.
While the sheriff’s office has declined to specify the motive for the murder, city officials told the Salamanca Press on Monday that the stabbing is believed to have occurred during a botched robbery attempt.
The sheriff’s office said Wednesday that its investigation revealed that the suspect fled by unspecified means to the Las Vegas area, where Nevada authorities then located him and took him into custody without incident.
Henderson police noted Francis does not face any additional charges in their jurisdiction.
Francis is awaiting extradition proceedings to be brought back to Cattaraugus County, but neither the sheriff’s office nor Henderson police have said when that will happen.
Broad Street area neighbors who spoke with the Times Herald Tuesday said that they were unfamiliar with Holt, the suspect or any tenants of 357 Broad St. It’s unclear whether Holt and Francis lived at 357 Broad St.
One neighbor said Tuesday that she knew Francis to be the suspect, but she did not personally know him.
Neighbors also said they did not know of any prior incidents or issues at 357 Broad St.Despite this, most who spoke with the Times Herald speculated that the murder was related to drug activity.
The sheriff’s office has not said whether drugs played a factor.
While deputies on Wednesday said that the investigation is continuing and more charges are pending, they again reiterated that the murder is an isolated incident and that there is no current danger to the public.
(Contact reporter Tom Dinki at tdinki@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @tomdinki)
