“48 Hours” Investigates in “Vengeance in Vegas”

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2015

Peter Van Sant and 48 HOURS investigate the death of a beautiful mom who was brutally murdered after her shift as a Las Vegas casino cocktail waitress in “Vengeance in Vegas” to be broadcast Saturday, Oct. 17 (10:00 PM ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

In the early morning hours of Sept. 29, 2012, Shauna Tiaffay checked out of her job as cocktail waitress at the Palms Casino Hotel and headed home. When she got there someone was waiting for her, someone who brutally beat the 46-year-old mother to death with a hammer. At the time, her husband, George Tiaffay, a West Point Military Academy grad and Las Vegas firefighter, was at work.

George Tiaffay and their young daughter found Shauna’s body.

“My wife, my wife is on the floor, bloody, stiff, not moving,” Tiaffay told a 911 dispatcher.

The murder shocked the community and put coworkers on edge.

“We were all so scared,” fellow waitress Siana Nikolav tells Van Sant.

“Was somebody staking her? Was someone obsessed with her?” says co-worker Lacey Green.

Police turned to the husband, who had a solid alibi.

“She was his world,” Maria McGrew says of her brother George. “That was his life. And then, when their daughter came around, they were just the cutest trio ever.”

George and Shauna Tiaffay were married three years after they met in Las Vegas. However, their relationship began to crumble with financial struggles, which led to fighting. He was upset over the way she dressed for work, and she complained that he brought a homeless man into their home to do odd jobs, say family members. After a decade together, they decided to live apart, while sharing custody of their daughter.

But what happened that fateful morning to Shauna Tiaffay?

The investigation would uncover an earlier robbery at Shauna’s townhouse, and a strange clue the robber left behind.

“I remember thinking, do we have a sexual predator?” says Las Vegas Detective Terri Miller, adding, “Who are we looking for? Are we looking for a male? Are we looking for a female?”

Just 48 hours into the investigation, detectives got a crucial tip from an unlikely source, William Pennix, known as “Big Will.” Pennix, who had been working in Las Vegas for years as a maintenance man at an apartment complex, called to say he got an urgent call from a friend who told him he had just killed a woman.

The tip led investigators to a man nicknamed “Greyhound” and into the desert and far away from the Vegas strip on a search for clues.  

Van Sant and 48 HOURS report the story through interviews with investigators, Shauna Tiaffay’s family members, George Tiaffay’s family, Pennix and others. 48 HOURS: “Vengeance in Vegas” is produced by Allen Alter, Alec Sirken, Chris Young Ritzen, Cindy Cesare and Chris O’Connell. George Baluzy is the producer-editor. Mike Baluzy, Maria Barrow, Kevin Dean, Marlon Disla and Alan Miller are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer.

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Press Contact:  Richard Huff      212-975-3328    huffr@cbsnews.com