Man sentenced to death in 2013 Lyon County killing-arson spree

YERINGTON — A 27-year-old ex-convict was sentenced to death Tuesday for killing five people in northern Nevada during a Mother’s Day weekend murder spree in 2013.

Jeremiah Diaz Bean’s fate had been decided in August by a state court in Yerington.

It was made official by Lyon County District Court Judge John Paul Schlegelmilch, who also imposed maximum consecutive penalties totaling 78 to 195 years for Bean’s other convictions including arson, robbery, burglary, auto theft and theft using a firearm.

Bean was found guilty in July of fatally shooting Robert Pape and Dorothy Pape, both 84, in May 2013 in one Fernley home, and Angie Duff, 67, and Lester Leiber, 69, at a house around the corner.

The jury found him guilty of fatally shooting newspaper deliveryman Eliazar Graham, 52, of Sparks, at an I-80 exit near the Mustang Ranch brothel east of Reno.

Bean had been convicted of an unrelated burglary in January 2011 in Lyon County. His probation was revoked six months later. He was jailed for about a year and his parole expired in December 2012.

Bean initially agreed to plead guilty in the 2013 slayings in a plea deal that would have spared him the death penalty. He changed his mind in November 2013 and stood trial this year.

A prosecutor told the jury that Bean robbed and killed his victims to get cash to party on a Friday night, and he set the Pape home afire to try to destroy the evidence.

Bean’s defense attorney argued that Bean wasn’t the only person to blame for the killings.

Bean becomes the 81st inmate on death row at Ely State Prison.

The last execution in Nevada was Daryl Linnie Mack in 2006.