A Las Vegas woman has been arrested after allegedly fatally shooting her husband while he was on a video chat.
On March 22 at around 11 p.m., Jourell Ng, age 36, was on a call in his home when he was shot. His wife Emily Ikuta, 37, reportedly tried to make his death look like an accident, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She now faces one count of murder.
Ikuta allegedly called 911 and said she had gone on a walk with her dog and came back to discover Ng face down on the floor and that he was finding it hard to breathe. She said it looked like he had been shot, per the arrest report. She told authorities her husband may have been cleaning his gun and accidentally shot himself, saying she found the gun near his body and then locked it in a closet. A neighbor said they heard the couple arguing just before the shooting.
Detectives said her retelling of events didn’t add up with the evidence. “Below the body of [Ng] there was no large pooling of blood that was expected had [Ng] been found face down, as Ikuta stated she had found him,” detectives wrote.
When investigators came upon gun cleaning supplies, they didn’t look like they’d been used. The trajectory of the bullet that hit Ng and killed him did not travel at the angle that it should have if he had shot himself while cleaning his gun.
The arrest report also reveals someone said they were “on a live chat with [Jourell Ng] during the time of his murder” and telephoned police to inform them of what they heard during the incident. “They informed detectives they heard [Ng’s] dog barking in the background of the call, prior to hearing a slapping noise they believed was a gunshot,” police wrote.
A GoFundMe appears to have been set up for funeral service costs, reading, “Jourell Ng also known as booboo to a lot of us, was a loved member of our gaming community, he never failed to brighten up our day and provide us with many good memories and laughs. He was taken from us too soon and our community will not be the same without him.”
