Norman Flowers was born about 1974, and in February 2023 he was serving life sentences in Nevada. He was convicted by a Clark County jury in October 2008 of the first-degree murder, sexual assault and burglary of Sheila Quarles, an 18-year-old woman who died in Las Vegas on March 24, 2005. He had been released on parole 20 days earlier, on March 4. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, and the same jury declined it and returned life without the possibility of parole.
Two more women, Marilee Coote, 45, and Rena Gonzales, 24, died in Las Vegas in May 2005. Flowers entered an Alford plea in 2011 to two counts of first-degree murder in those deaths and was sentenced to two further consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole. In February 2023 Las Vegas police announced that a cold-case review had tied him to a fourth death, that of Keysha Brown, 28, in October 2004. A warrant charging him with open murder and sexual assault was filed on February 23, 2023. That charge carries no verdict.
Flowers grew up in Compton, California, and moved to Las Vegas at the age of 16. In 1992, when he was 18, he pleaded guilty to burglary, robbery and arson and received an 18-year sentence, of which he served about ten years. His parole was revoked once, and he was released on parole again on March 4, 2005.
At the time of his trial in 2008 he was 34.
Keysha Brown was 28 and lived in Las Vegas. She died in October 2004. Her death was investigated as a homicide.
The case was reopened in July 2022 by a detective who had worked on a 2005 murder investigation involving Flowers. Further work on the evidence led police to name Flowers as the suspect. Police announced the result at a press conference on February 23, 2023, the day a warrant was filed in Las Vegas Justice Court.
The charges are open murder and sexual assault. In Nevada, open murder is a general charge: a jury decides the degree of the offense, which can be first-degree or second-degree murder, or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. Flowers has been in custody since 2005, and at the time of the announcement he was serving three life sentences. No plea, trial date or verdict in the Brown case has been reported.
Sheila Quarles was 18. She lived with her family in Las Vegas. She died on March 24, 2005. Flowers had been out of custody for about 20 days. Her mother had dated him for several months in 2004, which is how he came to know the family.
Flowers was charged with murder, sexual assault, burglary and robbery. He pleaded not guilty. The trial began in October 2008 in Clark County District Court. Prosecutors told the jury that he was responsible for the death and that evidence linked him to Quarles. The defense argued that other people could have been responsible. The jury deliberated for about a day.
The verdict was guilty of first-degree murder on a felony-murder theory, sexual assault and burglary. The jury found Flowers not guilty of robbery. That conviction made him eligible for the death penalty, and a penalty phase followed.
In the penalty phase, the defense called witnesses in mitigation, among them a psychologist and a mitigation specialist, who described an abusive childhood. Jurors later said that his childhood and his abandonment in Central America as a child had weighed with them. The jury was at first divided about evenly between death and life without parole. The foreman said that jurors agreed a life sentence would keep Flowers away from society for good.
The jury declined to impose the death penalty and returned a verdict of life without the possibility of parole. Flowers apologized to the family of Quarles before he was sentenced. The sentences for sexual assault and burglary have not been reported.
Marilee Coote was 45 and Rena Gonzales was 24. They died in Las Vegas on or about May 3, 2005, about two months after Quarles. After his conviction for the Quarles murder, Flowers was charged with the murder of both women, and a trial was expected in 2009. Prosecutors had filed notice in November 2005 that they would seek the death penalty in the Coote case.
On June 10, 2011, Flowers entered an Alford plea to two counts of first-degree murder. In an Alford plea a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors could prove their case. Under the agreement the prosecution stipulated to two consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole, on top of the Quarles sentence; had the cases gone to trial, prosecutors would have sought death. As part of the same agreement he withdrew his appeal in the Quarles case.
Before sentencing, Flowers asked to withdraw the plea, arguing that his attorney had pressured him and that he did not feel the attorney would fight for him at trial. Judge Doug Smith denied the motion after an evidentiary hearing that lasted about an hour. Flowers was then sentenced to the two consecutive terms.
The Nevada Supreme Court's 2020 opinion in the Quarles appeals records that the earlier appeals had been voluntarily dismissed under a global plea agreement resolving the charges in this case and a separate one. Years later, Flowers succeeded in setting aside the plea agreement, and the court reinstated the Quarles appeals. After supplemental briefing and reargument, the court decided the case on January 30, 2020, in Flowers v. State, 136 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 1, with Chief Justice Pickering and Justices Parraguirre and Cadish.
The court affirmed the judgment of conviction, the amended judgment and the order denying a new trial. It held that evidence about the Coote case was properly admitted to show identity and intent, that the testimony of the coroner's office and an analyst did not violate the Confrontation Clause, and that admission of his police interview did not violate his Fifth or Sixth Amendment rights. Excluding part of that interview was an error, the court said, but a harmless one. It found the evidence sufficient, found no prosecutorial misconduct warranting reversal, and rejected the claim of cumulative error.
In February 2023 Flowers was held in Nevada, serving three life sentences. The judgments in the Quarles case stand as affirmed on January 30, 2020. The 2011 plea agreement in the Coote and Gonzales cases was later set aside, and the outcome of those counts since then has not been reported. The Brown charge of open murder and sexual assault was pending when it was announced in February 2023.
Three terms recur in the case. An open murder charge leaves the degree of the offense to the jury, which can find first-degree or second-degree murder or manslaughter. The Quarles verdict of first-degree murder rested on a felony-murder theory. An Alford plea is entered under North Carolina v. Alford: the defendant accepts conviction while stopping short of admitting guilt, on the footing that the evidence would suffice for a jury to convict.
The Keysha Brown death is a charge only, and it has not been tried.
Flowers has not admitted guilt in the Coote and Gonzales cases; his 2011 plea was an Alford plea. The plea agreement was later set aside, and the present status of those two counts has not been reported. The Quarles conviction was reached by a jury and affirmed on appeal.
1992: At 18, pleads guilty to burglary, robbery and arson and receives 18 years.
October 2004: Keysha Brown, 28, dies in Las Vegas.
March 4, 2005: Flowers is released on parole.
March 24, 2005: Sheila Quarles, 18, dies in Las Vegas.
May 2005: Marilee Coote, 45, and Rena Gonzales, 24, die in Las Vegas.
November 8, 2005: Prosecutors file notice of intent to seek death in the Coote case.
October 2008: Jury convicts Flowers of first-degree murder, sexual assault and burglary in the Quarles case, acquits him of robbery, declines death and returns life without the possibility of parole.
June 10, 2011: Alford plea to two counts of first-degree murder (Coote and Gonzales).
2011: Sentenced to two consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole.
January 30, 2020: Nevada Supreme Court affirms the Quarles judgment.
July 2022: Cold-case review of the Brown death begins.
February 23, 2023: Warrant filed charging open murder and sexual assault in the Brown case.