Inset: Leo'oolo Tevaseu (North Las Vegas Police Department). Background: The residential street near where Tevaseu killed his niece in North Las Vegas, Nev. (Google Maps).
A Nevada man will spend at least a decade behind bars for killing his toddler niece by suffocating her with his bare hands.
In January, Leo'oolo Tevaseu, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the second degree for the April 2024 slaying of 2-year-old Fofogafeta Maluia Fields.
Last week, Eighth Judicial District Court Judge Tierra Jones formally accepted the terms of the plea deal and handed down a sentence of 10 to 25 years in state prison.
The underlying incident occurred on April 18, 2024, at an apartment on Mercury Street in North Las Vegas — a large suburban city located immediately north of its namesake in the Las Vegas Valley.
Around 11 a.m. on the day in question, the North Las Vegas Police Department arrived at the residence in response to a report about a 31-month-old child who was not breathing, according to a report by Henderson-based Fox affiliate KVVU.
First responders found the girl without a pulse and lying on a table in the dining room. Medical personnel rushed Fofogafeta to nearby University Medical Center Hospital for treatment, where she was later pronounced dead.
Detectives took over the case after the child died and quickly identified Tevaseu as a suspect. He was initially arrested and booked on charges of open murder and child abuse resulting in substantial bodily harm.
As the investigation moved forward, the defendant would admit to his culpability, while offering various narratives of the violence, according to an arrest report obtained by Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS.
Tevaseu first told detectives he was babysitting his sister's children while the woman was at the Department of Motor Vehicles when the little girl "all of a sudden collapsed" and he could not get her to respond, according to the charging document.
The killer added that he did not see the child put anything in her mouth and that he was not aware of the girl's medical history.
At this point, the defendant claimed to have called the girl's mother and told her what happened. The girl's mother then told Tevaseu to put Fofogafeta on the table and begin CPR.
As it turned out, Tevaseu did, in fact, call the woman — after she left the DMV and was headed to the store — and tell her a story to that effect. The tale about the child falling down, however, was all subterfuge to cover up the truth, according to law enforcement.
Another iteration of the story came when Tevaseu said the girl was "sick, but not that sick" and "swaying" — causing her to fall. Investigators contested this version with the defendant directly, noting several injuries not consistent with a fall alone.
Then, Tevaseu said he "slapped" Fofogafeta in the leg and face before hitting her with a pillow, causing her to fall down.
Still, this version did not explain the child's death.
Finally, the since-condemned man admitted the toddler would not stop crying, so he slapped her in the face and then hit her with a pillow. After that, he said, he picked up Fofogafeta, held her like a baby, and then used his hand to cover her mouth for "about 30 seconds" until she was "huffing and puffing."
Next, the defendant said, he put the girl on the ground, realized she was not breathing, tried to give her water, and then began CPR. After 5 or 10 minutes of such efforts, Tevaseu called the girl's mother.
The girl's mother would go on to tell police the toddler did not have any medical problems and was generally healthy at the time she died. The woman explained that Tevaseu, her younger brother, was her primary source of child care while she worked the night shift and that he "sometimes gets frustrated with the girls."
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