Potential South Shore links to Denison murder investigated

By Adam Jensen
BONANZA NEWS SERVICE
May 1, 2008

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Two men accused in separate incidents at the South Shore have been ruled out as suspects in the Brianna Denison murder case, according to Reno police.

The first man, 26-year-old Gilberto Mejia, is suspected of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman outside a house on Margaret Avenue in March. Mejia has been charged in El Dorado County Superior Court with sexual penetration by foreign object and false imprisonment.

The second man, a South Lake Tahoe resident, told a woman, "I'm Brianne's (sic) killer" outside Bill's Casino in the early-morning hours of March 10, according to a report from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

As the woman began to leave, the man allegedly approached her from behind and wrapped his jacket around her while grabbing her shoulders tightly.

The woman told the man to leave her alone, and he eventually stopped following her, the report said.

Sheriff's deputies questioned the man April 22 about the incident, after the woman again spotted him at Bill's Casino. The man was not arrested in connection with the incident.

Mejia and the man in the Bill's Casino case provided DNA samples to Reno police and are not believed to be involved with the Denison murder, said Lt. Bob McDonald of the Reno Police Department's detective division.

Denison, 19, disappeared from a home near the University of Nevada, Reno, on Jan. 19. Her body was found in a field in south Reno on Feb. 15. She had been strangled.

Police believe Denison's murderer is the same man suspected of at least two sexual assaults of UNR students in the past six months.

Investigators' search for Denison's killer is not focused on the South Shore, McDonald said.

"We don't have anything that ties up there," McDonald said.