Man held in Las Vegas jewelry store robbery that led to fatal shootout

Years before Gregory Richardson and Sir Isley Duncan were allegedly involved in a deadly jewelry store robbery in which Duncan was killed and another suspect fled, the two served time together at the same Nevada prisons — both for prior robbery convictions.

Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives concluded their monthslong investigation into the at-large suspect last week and filed a warrant for Richardson’s arrest March 20, according to the report. He was arrested three days later on charges of attempted murder and robbery, kidnapping, burglary with a weapon and conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary.

Nevada Department of Corrections records and police documents show that the pair’s prison sentences at High Desert and Southern Desert state prisons overlapped in 2007 and 2012, and at times the two were even housed in the same unit.

The pair, who met in prison, had grown to be “as close as brothers,” Duncan’s girlfriend would later tell police during an interview following the botched Dec. 29 robbery, which led to a shootout inside John Fish Jewelers, 953 E. Sahara Ave.

That evening, the two entered the store armed with handguns, police have said, and ordered everyone inside to put their hands up.

Their demands quickly led to a shootout between the suspects and an armed employee, who had been in a back room of the store when the two entered, police said. In the exchange, Duncan, the employee and a customer were injured.

The employee and the customer survived their injuries, but Duncan died of multiple gunshot wounds that night.

Richardson fled, leaving Duncan bleeding inside the jewelry store, according to Richardson’s arrest report, released Tuesday.

Richardson’s name first surfaced in the investigation during a search of Duncan’s cellphone, which was found on him the night of the robbery, the report stated.

The two had called each other about 80 times in the weeks leading up to the robbery, prompting detectives to review Richardson’s cellphone records from the day of the robbery between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Those records showed Richardson’s cellphone pinging to several towers within 500 feet of John Fish Jewelers before, during and immediately after the robbery, according to the arrest report.

Richardson changed his phone number about two weeks after the robbery, police determined.

A preliminary hearing in the case is set for April 8, jail records show. He remains at the Clark County Detention Center without bail.