Hiding under a table, having just seen a man shot and killed before her eyes, a terrified woman begged for her life. And it was spared, according to court documents laying out the scene at a Las Vegas law office, where attorney Joseph Houston stood up at the start of a deposition on Monday and shot opposing lawyer Dennis Prince four times. Houston ultimately allowed that woman, attorney Shannon Wilson, to leave the conference room before killing his former daughter-in-law Ashley Prince, whom her husband had been representing in a bitter custody dispute, according to Monday's filing by an attorney for Ashley Prince. In it, Michele LoBello describes how Wilson hid under the conference room table when Houston stood up and started shooting with "a very glazed and rattled look in his eyes," per the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
"She asked Mr. Houston please not to hurt her baby as she is pregnant" and "Mr. Houston allowed her to leave the conference room," LoBello writes, adding Wilson took cover elsewhere in the office, then "heard additional shots fired." After shooting 57-year-old Dennis Prince, Houston, 77—who'd claimed to have terminal cancer, per Fox News—allegedly turned the gun on 30-year-old Ashley Prince, then himself, while his own wife sat at the conference room table. Katherine Houston was to be questioned during the deposition, per the New York Post. She "believed it prudent to have her own counsel, to have some separation from the family dynamic, because the entire case was so acrimonious," her lawyer tells the Review-Journal.
Ashley Prince and ex-husband Dylan Houston, not present at the shooting, were fighting over custody of their two children. According to LoBello's filing, a private investigator had observed Dylan Houston, who has a history of reckless driving, drinking at a bar before driving home erratically on March 29. That information was presented to Joseph Houston, who was representing his son, on April 2, per the Review-Journal. LoBello's filing suggests Dylan Houston's actions around the time of the shooting—including showing up to pick up his kids from school "in the middle of the school day"—suggested he "knew or must have known of the intentions of his father," but he denies any prior knowledge of the shooting. A judge has granted an emergency motion giving custody of the couple's children to Ashley Prince's sister. (More Las Vegas stories.)
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