George Tiaffay

This is one of those spousal murder cases where the husband almost got away with it and he may have had he been just a little bit smarter. But, then again, that is almost always the case. The perpetrator misses something little that cannot be disputed or explained away no matter how much they try.

On September 29, 2012 Shauna Tiaffay was returning to her apartment at around 3:30 in the morning after her shift as a cocktail waitress at a hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. Shauna was estranged from her firefighter husband, George. Besides, George was also at working doing one of those 24 hour shifts that firefighters are known for. The couple's eight year old daughter was spending the night with her grandparents while her parents worked. So, when Shauna returned home it was empty inside, or at least it should have been.

Shauna walked into her home and it is unclear how long it took her before she realized that she was not alone. But, soon after she entered a man named Noel Stevens says that he came out of a closet and began beating her with a hammer. When the wooden handle of the hammer broke he continued to beat Shauna with the metal end until she stopped moving. The following morning, after getting off his shift, George picked up his daughter and drove over to Shauna's home. It was there that Shauna's body was found and George made a 911 call.

Noel Stevens was a homeless man who lived in a tent on the outskirts of Las Vegas. It is not clear how he met George Tiaffay but it was pretty well known that George had often hired Stevens to do work around his house and yard. Shauna had told friends and family that she found Stevens to be “creepy.” It is not completely clear just when authorities got a tip that Stevens was involved in Shauna's murder but allegedly Stevens had confessed to someone who in turn called the police. Investigators went and searched the tent in which Stevens lived and found a pair of his pants covered in blood and a bar code sticker that matched one for a hammer. It seems it did not take long until Stevens confessed to the police. Whether Stevens implicated George Tiaffay before or after the authorities pieced things together is not clear. What is clear is that eventually Stevens would say and authorities would believe that George had hired Stevens for one last job.... the murder of his wife.

Stevens would claim that George had bought him several different hammers, and clothes to wear at the scene. The blood found on his pants would later be identified as belonging to Shauna. Stevens also claimed that George gave him a key to the apartment and a map to the inside. I can only conclude that despite the fact that Stevens had never been inside the apartment considering the couple was estranged and Shauna had issues with him. Stevens stated that George told him that would be the perfect time to act because she would be “alone and vulnerable.” I was unable to determine exactly how much money George promised him for the deed. Some information says that Stevens was promised $600 while other information claims it was was $5,000.

For his part George clearly had an alibi proving that he was not at the scene of the crime at the time that it occurred. However, that same alibi did not prove that he had not been involved in the planning. Despite the fact that Stevens had a criminal background and apparent mental health issues authorities came to believe that Stevens' story about George's involvement was in fact true. Defense attorneys would later used those issues with Stevens to argue to a jury that he was unreliable. However, despite that the defense had two hurdles they needed to get over. The first was the issue with cell phone data. It was determined that George Tiaffay had called Noel Stevens some eighty-seven times in the month of September. There were five calls between the two on the night before the murder. But, the biggest thing the defense had to explain was why there were several surveillance videos from stores in Las Vegas that saw the men together buying hammers and other things used in the murder. While I found nothing that stated it specifically, I am sure the defense argued that George had often hired Stevens to do work for him and he was just such a nice guy that he was trying to help the poor homeless man.

A jury did not buy the defense theory and in September of 2015 George Tiaffay was found guilty of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, burglary and robbery. He was immediately sentenced to life without parole at the time of his conviction on the murder charge. In December of 2015 he was sentenced to an additional 32-81 years for the remaining charges of which he was convicted. The defense argued that George was a West Point graduate with a good military background. They also pointed out that as a firefighter he had been an upstanding member of society. In his ruling the judge stated his prior good acts did not outweigh his decision to plot the murder of his wife and referred to George as “pure evil.”

The following month Stevens was sentenced to a term of 42 years to life. He had pleaded guilty some three years earlier but it appears that his sentencing was delayed until he testified against George in his trial.

While both men obviously remain in prison the Department of Corrections in Nevada was difficult to understand other than knowing they are incarcerated. It seems doubtful that either man will ever see the sun outside of prison walls.