LAS VEGAS – Records show a 19-year-old accused of killing a Las Vegas mother in a neighborhood gunbattle suffered a severe head injury at the hands of his father when he was a 7-week-old infant.
Archived court documents reviewed by The Associated Press show the father, Erich Milton Nowsch Sr., pleaded guilty in 1997 to child abuse that caused his baby's skull to be fractured.
The father killed himself in 2010 at 39 when the son was 14.
Defense attorney Augustus Claus says he wants to investigate the extent and effect of the injury before deciding whether to use it as part of the defense in the murder case.
Nowsch faces murder, attempted murder and weapon charges in the shooting death of Tammy Meyers earlier this month.
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