A Las Vegas Man Paid His Handyman To Kill His Estranged Wife With A Hammer

George and Shauna Tiaffay were a picturesque couple. She was a successful cocktail waitress at The Palms casino on the Las Vegas strip. That was where she and George, an EMT and firefighter, met. After dating for a time, Shauna gave birth to their daughter and the pair married a few years later.

They worked as a team to support each other’s careers and raise their daughter in an idyllic, suburban setting. To their families, the Tiaffay family looked perfect. To their friends, the Tiaffays were people to be envied.

On the inside, there were cracks in the marriage. Having a child had strained the relationship and there were fights about how to raise her and about the finances. The conflict came to a head in April 2012 when the pair separated and George moved into an apartment.

The Tiaffays’ daughter — who was eight in 2012 — spent time with both parents, and she was with George on Sept. 29 when she reportedly asked to stop by her mother’s house and get an item.

As George pulled into the driveway, he noticed that the garage door was open, which was unusual. As he and his daughter walked into the home, he froze when he saw Shauna lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs, still in her work outfit. He knew with one look that she was dead and he ushered their daughter out of the home to call 911.

The investigation revealed that Shauna died because of blunt force trauma to the head — in all, she’d been struck 17 times with both sides of a hammer. She was so disfigured, the family was forced to hold a closed-casket funeral.

The murder came just two weeks after a break-in at the home. The burglar had taken some of Shauna’s jewelry and underwear, but she assumed it was some local teens. George, however, told police he was concerned that it was related to the murder.

Police quickly cleared George as a suspect in Shauna’s killing when his fellow firefighters were able to place him on duty at the firehall during the 24 hours preceding his wife’s murder. Instead, they watched the surveillance footage from The Palms to see if anybody had been following Shauna around or had approached her in the parking lot as she left work. That avenue was a dead end; nobody had followed her through the casino or out to her car.

It appeared the case would go cold, but then an anonymous tip sent police back towards George. According to the caller, a homeless man named Noel Stevens was claiming that he’d killed a woman with a hammer.

As authorities investigated, they realized that Stevens had worked for George as a handyman, and Stevens reportedly confessed that George had offered to pay him $5,000 to kill Shauna. George had even taken Stevens to a local store to buy supplies — a claim that was backed up by video footage of the pair purchasing a hammer, ski mask, and black clothing at a big-box store. When police searched the campsite where Stevens lived outside of town, they reportedly found bloody clothing, some of Shauna’s possessions, and the hammer that Stevens used to bludgeon her to death.

Stevens pleaded guilty just four months after the murder and was sentenced to 42 years to life in prison. As part of his plea, he also testified against George.

George’s legal journey took longer - he went on trial in August 2015 and was ultimately found guilty even as he denied playing any role in Shauna’s murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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