The Latest: Police ID man held in Vegas sledgehammer slaying

LAS VEGAS – The Latest on the arrest of a man in the sledgehammer killing of a woman calling 911 from a Las Vegas laundromat (all times local):

2:30 p.m.

Police say they don’t believe a woman knew the man arrested and accused of bludgeoning her to death with a sledgehammer while her 911 call from a Las Vegas laundromat went dead.

Las Vegas police said Thursday that a dispatcher heard screaming before the line disconnected, and detectives think the killing was a random act of violence.

A police statement says arriving officers found 36-year-old Clinton E. Taylor covered in blood and carrying a sledgehammer near the laundromat a little after 5 a.m. Thursday.

Records showed that Taylor was being held at the Clark County jail pending an initial court appearance Friday, during which he is expected to have an attorney appointed to his defence.

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11:05 a.m.

Las Vegas police say a woman in a laundromat was killed after reporting a man outside the establishment with a sledgehammer and that authorities believe the suspect beat her with the sledgehammer in an apparently random attack.

Police Lt. Ray Spencer says that the woman called 911 before dawn Thursday to report she was alone and that a man was outside with the sledgehammer. Then the woman screamed and the call cut off.

Spencer says officers found the woman fatally injured and detained a man nearby who had a sledgehammer and blood on his hands.

The suspect and the woman were not immediately identified.

Spencer says authorities have no indications that the woman knew the man.