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An Insider's Look At The Slaying Of Sherrice Iverson
Editor's Note: At the time of the Sherrice Iverson murder, Cohen was employed as the Public Relations Manager for the Primadonna Corporation. He has since left the company.
On the last night of her life, 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson traveled to Primm, Nev., outside Las Vegas, with her father and older brother in a dilapidated van furnished with a filthy mattress and stained blankets. It was midnight on Memorial Day weekend in 1997 and the three casinos in Primm were full of people gambling and drinking.
The arcades were packed with kids whose parents were at the tables or in front of slot machines. Sherrice's father, LeRoy, gambled in Buffalo Bill's for a few hours, but was booted out because his daughter was running loose through the arcade area without supervision. LeRoy took Sherrice and his 14-year-old son Harold across the street to the Primadonna Resort & Casino (now called the Primm Valley Resort & Casino). He once again sent his kids to the arcade while he played quarter video poker. Once again Sherrice roamed free. Security warned LeRoy twice to keep his daughter supervised. Twice he told his 14-year-old son to watch her. Harold didn't.
Those who have followed the story in the news have a pretty good idea what happened next. Video cameras captured images of a guy who looked a lot like 18-year-old Jeremy Strohmeyer playing tag with Sherrice. They playfully chased each other. She picked up a wet floor sign and tossed it at him, hitting his leg. The cameras showed the man chasing her into the women's restroom. He ran out 20 minutes later. She was found two hours later, strangled, molested, dead, sitting on the toilet, perched there with her feet off the ground so that she wouldn't be seen by anybody who wasn't peeking underneath the stall.
That's when they called me.
I was the public relations manager for the Primadonna Corporation when it happened. It was my job, with lots of help from the Primadonna team and our PR firm, to work with the press.
My phone rang that Saturday at 6 a.m. It was the second day of what was supposed to be my first...