The public record shows a case that widened from a nearby traffic stop to a Utah arrest in less than 24 hours.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — The first official account of the killings of a Las Vegas woman and toddler began with sound, not a suspect: officers on a traffic stop heard gunfire, moved toward it and found two victims inside a bullet-riddled car on Victoria Medici Street.
From there, the case expanded in stages. First came the emergency response and homicide investigation. Next came the names of the dead, Danaijha Robinson and Nhalani Hiner. Then, one day later, police in Utah arrested Ziaire Ham after locating a stolen SUV wanted by Las Vegas investigators. Only after that did court records, reported by local media, begin to sketch the suspect’s own explanation for the shooting. That sequence matters because it shows how the public record was built: scene evidence first, identities second, arrest third and motive theory last.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said the shooting happened at about 9:08 p.m. on March 2 near Starr Avenue and Interstate 15. Officers were handling a routine traffic stop when they heard gunshots in the area and at the same time dispatch received multiple reports of gunfire. Police canvassed the neighborhood and found a vehicle with several apparent bullet impacts in the 11000 block of Victoria Medici Street. Inside were a woman and a toddler, both suffering from gunshot wounds. They were taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. In that first release, police did not name a suspect and said the homicide investigation was continuing. The location and timing quickly became central facts because they placed officers close enough to hear the attack as it happened, narrowing the response window even if not the motive.
By the next day, the victims had names and the case had a clearer human dimension. The Clark County coroner identified them as Danaijha Robinson, 20, and Nhalani Hiner, 1, and ruled both deaths homicides. Local reporting added that the child was from Henderson and that a source close to the family said Robinson was the toddler’s aunt. Television coverage also described how the victims had ended up at that spot. According to those reports, they were in a blue Hyundai that had parked near the separate traffic stop involving another car in their group. The toddler’s mother and another woman stepped away from the Hyundai while Robinson and Nhalani remained inside. That left the car stationary and occupied when the shooting began, a detail that later fit with investigators’ claim that the gunman approached on foot rather than firing from another passing vehicle.
The next major development came from Utah, where police encountered the suspect through technology before they tied down the homicide case publicly. Ogden police said an automated license plate reader hit on a stolen vehicle wanted by LVMPD at about 3:58 p.m. on March 3. Officers tried to stop the SUV, but it fled. With help from neighboring agencies, the vehicle was later found in Roy and Ham was arrested without further incident. He was booked into Weber County Jail on charges including receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle, failure to respond to an officer’s signal to stop and reckless driving. Las Vegas police then updated their own release, naming Ham as the homicide suspect and saying he would be extradited to Nevada to face open murder charges with the use of a deadly weapon.
That public-record chain also pointed investigators toward physical evidence beyond the Las Vegas scene. Ogden police asked residents for help finding a handgun believed to have been discarded by the suspect between Ogden and Roy. Officers canvassed the area with firearm-detection dogs and sought home surveillance footage showing the suspect or the black SUV with Arizona plates. The request suggested that even with a suspect in custody, detectives were still building the evidentiary backbone of the case. Police have not publicly laid out any forensic findings tying the weapon to the shooting, nor have they publicly described a prior relationship between Ham and the people in the Hyundai. Those gaps left room for court records to become the first source of any motive narrative.
That narrative emerged in reports on the criminal complaint. According to those accounts, Ham told detectives he had traveled from Phoenix, argued with family members in Las Vegas and left believing people with gang affiliations were following him. He said he noticed a blue car and a gray car in a residential area, decided one did not belong there and approached the blue Hyundai. When the occupant did not get out, he allegedly fired nine shots. Investigators said surveillance video captured the attack and that Ham later became hysterical when told a child had been inside. Those statements are among the most dramatic details made public so far, but they arrived last in the record, after police had already documented the scene, identified the victims and tracked the suspect into another state.
The case now stands at the point where early police observations are giving way to a murder prosecution. Ham remained jailed in Utah as Las Vegas authorities prepared to bring him back. The next public step is his extradition to Nevada and the filing of the murder case in court.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.