Police say a 46-year-old man was hospitalized and booked in absentia on an open murder count.
LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas police say a woman was found shot to death inside a Spring Valley home early Sunday after officers responded to a panic alarm near West Spring Mountain Road and South El Capitan Way and forced their way inside.
The investigation matters because it quickly shifted from an unattended alarm call to a homicide case in a quiet residential area on the west side of the valley. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said detectives believe the shooting happened inside the home and that the injured man found there was the woman’s boyfriend. He remained hospitalized Sunday while the victim’s identity had not yet been released.
Police said the chain of events began about 3:15 a.m. Sunday, when Metro communications received a report of a multi-alarm activation at a home in the 8900 block of Via Vista Circle. Officers went to the address and tried to reach whoever was inside by knocking at the door and making phone calls, but no one answered. Investigators said officers then made an emergency entry. Inside, they found a woman with gunshot wounds and a man suffering from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Medical crews pronounced the woman dead at the scene. The man, later identified by police as 46-year-old Christopher Behar, was taken to a local hospital. Metro said homicide detectives were called in after the death investigation began to point to a criminal shooting rather than an accident or medical emergency.
By later Sunday, police said preliminary evidence showed Behar shot his girlfriend before turning the gun on himself. Authorities did not publicly describe the evidence in detail, and they had not released the woman’s name pending notification of relatives and action by the Clark County coroner’s office. Police also did not say whether anyone else was inside the house when officers arrived or whether neighbors reported hearing gunfire before the alarm activation. What officers did say was that they found no continuing threat to the broader neighborhood. Behar was booked in absentia into the Clark County Detention Center on an open murder charge while he remained under medical care. In Nevada, that booking step allows a criminal case to begin moving forward even when a suspect is still hospitalized and cannot be physically taken into custody.
The case unfolded in Spring Valley, a heavily populated unincorporated area west of the Las Vegas Strip that mixes subdivisions, apartments and commercial corridors. The block where police responded sits in a residential pocket near Spring Mountain Road, far from the tourist core but still inside one of the valley’s busiest and most closely watched regions. Domestic violence cases often draw intense scrutiny because the first call for help can come in many forms, including a direct 911 report, a third-party welfare check or an alarm signal from inside a home. In this case, police said the first alert came from a security-related alarm. That detail helps explain why officers arrived to what may have looked routine at first, only to find a deadly shooting once they entered. It also explains why detectives spent the day piecing together events that may have happened before police ever reached the front door.
Procedurally, the next steps are likely to run through both the hospital and the coroner’s office. Police said the homicide section took over the investigation Sunday, and the coroner will release the victim’s identity as well as the official cause and manner of death. Prosecutors typically review a case after detectives complete reports, witness interviews, forensic testing and evidence collection. Because the suspect was hospitalized, police used an in absentia booking on the open murder count, which preserves the arrest status while medical treatment continues. Additional court action would depend on Behar’s condition and the filing decisions of the Clark County district attorney’s office. Detectives also still have unanswered questions to close out, including the exact timeline inside the house, whether prior calls had been made to the residence and whether any surveillance, phone data or ballistic testing will sharpen the account of what happened before officers entered.
For neighbors, the most visible part of the day was the sudden police presence on a normally quiet cul-de-sac. Crime-scene tape, patrol vehicles and investigators moving in and out of the home turned an ordinary residential street into the center of a homicide investigation. Police did not publicly describe any direct witness accounts Sunday, and no family members spoke on the record in the first wave of coverage. Even so, the case carried the familiar shock of violence breaking into a neighborhood built around routine family life. Officers stressed that the shooting appeared isolated, a point meant to calm residents worried that an armed suspect might still be at large. That reassurance did not answer the larger human questions left behind, including how the dispute unfolded and what those closest to the couple may have seen in the hours before the shooting.
The case remained under investigation Sunday night, with the victim still unidentified in public records and the hospitalized suspect facing an open murder booking. The next major update is expected from the Clark County coroner and, after that, from police or prosecutors as the case moves ahead.
Author note: Last updated March 23, 2026.