Clarice Yamaguchi and Hyo Sup Um were strangers to each other, but both died during the same New Year’s Eve robbery spree.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Clarice Yamaguchi had come from Hawaii to spend the holiday period in Las Vegas. Hyo Sup Um happened to be at another parking garage several hours later. Their lives crossed only through a string of robberies on New Year’s Eve 2021 that killed them both and, nearly five years later, sent Jordan Ruby to prison for at least 35 years.
Ruby’s sentencing on Sept. 24 resolved his criminal case, but the hearing also emphasized what had been lost long before the legal process reached that point. Yamaguchi was 66 and traveling with her husband, Robert, when she was shot during an attempted robbery at Fashion Show mall. Um was 60 when he was shot later at Palace Station during another robbery, police said. Prosecutors presented the killings as parts of a broader series of crimes committed by Ruby and Jesani Carter over Dec. 30 and 31, 2021. The men were teenagers or young adults when they were arrested; the victims never had a connection to them before the encounters that ended their lives.
Yamaguchi’s death became the emotional center of Ruby’s sentencing because her family was there to describe what the crime had taken from them. Her daughter recalled the struggle in the parking garage and said her mother’s final moments included seeing Robert Yamaguchi fight desperately to protect her. The account shifted attention away from the purse that prosecutors said the assailant was trying to steal and toward the human cost of the confrontation. Robert Yamaguchi later said he was disappointed with the sentence and had wanted Ruby to receive the death penalty, a punishment prosecutors had once intended to pursue.
The couple had been visiting from Waipahu on Oahu when the shooting occurred. Police said they were in the Fashion Show parking garage at about 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 31. Reporting on the investigation said Clarice Yamaguchi needed to return toward the couple’s rental vehicle for a face mask. A silver BMW approached, and a man got out and tried to take her purse. Robert Yamaguchi rushed into the confrontation and fought with the robber. A shot was fired during the struggle. Clarice Yamaguchi was critically wounded and later died at University Medical Center.
Security video preserved part of what happened. Investigators said the recording showed the approach, struggle and escape, giving police a visual record of the vehicle and the robbery. A witness also provided information about people seen in the BMW. The footage became important evidence in a case that soon extended beyond Fashion Show. But for Yamaguchi’s family, its significance was different. It documented an ordinary vacation errand turning into a fatal encounter in a place where the couple had no reason to expect that they would be targeted by strangers.
Um’s death received less attention during Ruby’s sentencing because prosecutors said no relatives were available to speak for him in court. His absence from the victim-impact portion of the hearing did not make the circumstances less serious. Police said a woman had been robbed at gunpoint in the Palace Station garage and that Um was targeted a short time later. Investigators found that his wallet was missing after he was shot. He was taken to the same hospital where Yamaguchi had been treated and later died. The coroner’s office classified his death as a homicide.
The two victims illustrate the randomness prosecutors attributed to the crime spree. Neither Yamaguchi nor Um was alleged to have been sought out because of a personal dispute. Prosecutors said the defendants were looking for people to rob in and around the tourist corridor. Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo wrote that the men had come to Las Vegas during one of the busiest days of the year to make money through robberies. A jail call attributed to Ruby was also cited by prosecutors as evidence that robbery was the purpose of the trip. Under that account, the victims were selected because they were available targets, not because of who they were.
Other people encountered the defendants during the same period and survived. Authorities connected Ruby and Carter to a robbery at Wynn Las Vegas on Dec. 30. After Yamaguchi was shot the next day, an employee at Sahara Las Vegas reported that someone tried to take his backpack and fired at him when he fled. At Palace Station, a woman was robbed at gunpoint before Um was killed. Those incidents broadened the eventual prosecution beyond the two homicides and demonstrated why investigators quickly treated the separate reports as a connected public-safety threat rather than isolated property crimes.
The arrests came after investigators followed the silver BMW seen during the alleged crimes. Police said the vehicle was involved in multiple incidents before it later crashed. Ruby and Carter were taken into custody and held without bail. A grand jury eventually indicted them on 13 counts that included murder, attempted murder, robbery, attempted robbery and conspiracy allegations. Prosecutors announced in 2022 that they planned to seek the death penalty, raising the possibility that the case would culminate in a capital trial focused on both killings.
That trial never occurred. After years in custody, Ruby pleaded guilty in July 2026 to first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon and attempted murder. Carter also entered guilty pleas, accepting responsibility on 13 counts, including murder charges connected to Yamaguchi and Um. The agreements removed the death penalty from the cases and guaranteed lengthy imprisonment. Ruby’s deal set the stage for the September hearing before Chief District Judge Tierra Jones. Carter’s agreement was reported to expose him to a minimum of 50 years in prison.
Ruby used his sentencing hearing to apologize. He said there was no excuse for murder and told Yamaguchi’s family that he had taken their loved one away. DiGiacomo, while seeking punishment on behalf of the state, acknowledged that Ruby appeared to have matured during the years since his arrest and had shown substantial remorse. He also differentiated Ruby from Carter, describing Carter as the leader of the robbery spree. Those comments gave Jones information about Ruby’s conduct after arrest, but they did not alter the deaths that formed the foundation of the case.
Jones sentenced Ruby to 35 years to life and credited him for more than 1,000 days already spent in detention. Before announcing the punishment, the judge addressed the limits of what the court could accomplish. She said the loss and grief would remain regardless of the sentence and expressed hope that the proceeding could give the victims’ loved ones some closure. Her remarks reflected an unavoidable imbalance in a homicide sentencing: courts can impose decades of confinement, but no legal order can restore the years a victim would otherwise have had.
The Yamaguchi family also pursued a separate civil claim connected to the Fashion Show shooting. A wrongful-death lawsuit filed in 2023 accused the mall, Brookfield Properties Retail and Dillard’s of negligence, arguing in part that security was inadequate for the larger New Year’s Eve crowds. The allegations in that civil case were separate from the criminal prosecution of Ruby and Carter. Its existence nevertheless showed how the consequences of Yamaguchi’s death extended beyond the murder charges and into questions about responsibility for safety at the property where she was killed.
For Ruby, the criminal consequence is now established: 35 years to life. For Carter, the sources reviewed for this report show that he had pleaded guilty and was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 8, but they do not establish a verified later outcome from that hearing. What is settled is the underlying loss. Yamaguchi and Um entered two unrelated Las Vegas parking garages on the same holiday and became victims in the same series of crimes. Nearly five years of court proceedings changed the defendants’ legal status, but not the finality of what happened to the two people at the center of the case.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 9, 2026.