As you can imagine, there are a lot of murders in Las Vegas. I don't read all the news accounts to get the details because often it's just gang members shooting other gang members, or drug deals gone bad.

These two cases came up in the last couple of weeks - tragedies and misunderstandings.

Homeowner Shoots Man Through Front Door

The deceased was a 21-year old law student from California. He came to Las Vegas to visit a friend, and they joined up with a third guy to go nightclubbing on the Las Vegas Strip. Sometime after midnight they left the Bellagio and went to a strip club for a couple of hours. Time to go home, the visitor was settling the tab and the other two guys went outside, got into the Uber ride they'd called, and left him there. He called a cab and went back to the apartment complex, got there around 5 am. But he got the buildings mixed up, and started pounding on the wrong door, calling out loudly to his friends to let him in.

The people in the apartment were terrified, and couldn't see very well through their peephole. They yelled through the door that they had a gun and were calling the police. Before the police got there, the guy with the gun became more frightened and shot several times through the door without opening it, killing the drunk guy on the other side, and some of the bullets went through the front door of the empty apartment across the hallway.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

A 42-year old free spirit guy from California was working for one of those dot coms and making good money, but decided he couldn't afford to pay rent in the Silicon Valley area, so started living in his car. He had plenty of money, ate in nice restaurants, and maintained a membership at 24 Hour Fitness so he could use the showers. He traveled around the country visiting places he wanted to see and going for bicycle tours on his bike, often sleeping in his car parked at the 24 Hour Fitness centers because he felt safe with people coming and going at all hours of the day and night.

Last week he was at a 24 Hour in Las Vegas when this couple who were going around burglarizing cars came upon him. They pulled up next to him and for some reason the car burglar guy decided to shoot the guy who was sleeping in his car.

The second story is sadder than the first one.