The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is now recommending that Young be charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping in Vega’s death, according to a probable cause statement filed last month in that county’s superior court.
For Vega’s mother, the latest development brought a measure of relief.
“We’ve felt like we’ve been drowning in a sea of despair and grief for two and a half years,” Erika Pillsbury said. “And now we’ve been thrown a life preserver. The people that are responsible for murdering my little daughter are hopefully going to face justice.”
Two other suspects have been accused in Vega’s death. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office filed charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and theft against Jared Gray, according to a June 20 complaint. Gray was in custody in Georgia on unrelated charges and has not been extradited to Arizona, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said.
A third person, Sencere Hayes, was charged in November with first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and theft in connection with Vega’s killing. He has pleaded not guilty.
Authorities have provided few details about the connection between the men, though the probable cause statement identified a geographic link — Chattanooga, Tennessee. Young is from the city, the statement says, and Hayes and Gray traveled to Phoenix from there.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment. A spokesperson for the county attorney’s office said it is reviewing potential charges against Young, 29, but would not comment on the robbery case, which it is prosecuting and is scheduled to take to trial on July 29. It isn’t clear why the case has taken so long to adjudicate.
Lawyers for Hayes and Young did not respond to requests for comment. Court records do not list an attorney for Gray. In an interview with authorities, he denied ever having been to Arizona, the probable cause statement shows.
A terrifying incident close to home
At 4:15 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2020, Vega was parking outside her apartment building after work when a masked man ran toward her, drew a gun and demanded her belongings, according to a Phoenix Police Department incident report.
The man grabbed Vega’s phone and held it to her face to try and unlock it, but failed because the facial-recognition feature wasn’t set up, Vega’s mother recalled her daughter telling her. When he ordered her to enter her PIN, Vega resisted, Pillsbury said.
“He shoved her to the ground, told her he’d kill her and held the gun to her face,” Pillsbury said.
Vega complied, Pillsbury said, and the man took everything — car keys, wallet, phone and a bag holding hundreds of dollars. With the phone unlocked, the man stole more money through a cash transfer app, according to the report.
Vega was so distraught, Pillsbury recalled, that “you couldn’t walk up behind her without her jumping.”
Within days, Pillsbury said, Vega moved somewhere she thought had better security. The new apartment was on the second floor, Pillsbury said, and had a parking garage that required a key fob for access.
Three years later, that garage was the last place Vega would be seen alive.
Another dancer says she was likely tracked
Vega, who performed at the Phoenix strip club Le Girls and was saving to become a certified personal trainer, wasn’t the venue’s only dancer who said they’d been targeted after a shift. In the months before and after Vega’s robbery, two other women said a masked man held them up — or tried to hold them up — at gunpoint, according to interviews with former dancers and police reports.
One former dancer who said she was robbed didn’t know Vega well, but asked Vega to describe her attacker.
After Vega described a man with gloves, a ski mask and a hoodie who was taller than her — Vega was 5-foot-8 — the former dancer said she believed they’d likely been targeted by the same person. (The woman asked NBC News not to identify her because she no longer works as a dancer.)
Around 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2019, she said, a masked assailant appeared in front of her aunt’s condo in a quiet part of Scottsdale, a wealthy suburb east of Phoenix, and pointed a gun in her face. He took her bag and fled.
Afterward, the woman said, she banged so hard on her aunt’s front door that her knuckles bled.
