Las Vegas man indicted for murder and mayhem after allegedly killing a man and eating his eye and ear

One man is dead and another faces a grand jury indictment following a horrifying attack in downtown Las Vegas in the early hours of Sunday, April 28, 2024.

At approximately 4:44 a.m., the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department received a call reporting a violent altercation on the 1100 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard, near Charleston Boulevard. The episode actually began a short time earlier: an employee at a nearby 7-Eleven called 911 to report that a man—later identified as 29-year-old Colin Ichiro Czech—had tackled and attacked a customer outside the store. Roughly 45 minutes later, a second 911 call reported a man at a bus stop “eating” the face of another man lying on the ground.

Police arrived and found both men at the scene, with Czech kneeling next to the victim. According to a KLAS-TV report and court documents, Czech had “biological matter” in his hair, mouth, and on his clothing. He allegedly told officers that the victim had attacked him first.

The victim, identified by police and the Clark County Coroner’s Office as Kenneth Brown, suffered a large head wound and was missing an eye and an ear. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Investigators allege Czech punched and struck Brown, causing his head to hit the concrete.

According to KLAS, Czech went in and out of consciousness while in custody. He told detectives he was homeless and had been awake for five days straight because something was “possessing him,” claimed he had fought a “shape-shifter,” and said voices in his head had told him to kill a man named “Drake” whom he did not know.

Court documents revealed that when detectives asked Czech what he had used to hurt the victim, he answered, “my teeth,” and admitted using them to “eat” Brown’s eyeballs and ears. A police crime-scene analyst later testified to a grand jury that Brown’s eyeball and ear were found lying on the ground near his body.

Czech was initially charged with open murder and booked into the Clark County Detention Center, where he has been held without bail. He missed his first scheduled court date because he remained hospitalized, but appeared days later via video.

The case moved forward in the weeks that followed. After his public defender, Chief Deputy Public Defender David Westbrook, argued his client was not competent, Czech underwent a mental-health evaluation; on May 24, 2024, after two doctors signed off, a judge found him competent to stand trial. “Competency is fluid,” Westbrook noted, adding that it is often medication-dependent.

In July 2024, a Clark County grand jury returned an indictment expanding the case well beyond the original single count. Czech was indicted on charges of murder, mayhem, and attempted murder. The mayhem count, prosecutors said, stems from the allegation that he disfigured Brown by “removing an eyeball and/or ear by biting/chewing them off and/or by means unknown.” The attempted-murder charge relates to a second man—a 7-Eleven worker—whom Czech allegedly tried to kill “in the same manner” shortly before the fatal encounter. He has continued to be held without bail as the case proceeds, and Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson cautioned early on that cases involving competency questions “can take years.”

For more from The Aegis Alliance, see our Crime News and US News sections. Additional coverage of the indictment is available from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental illness, homelessness, or thoughts of harming themselves or others, help is available. In the U.S., you can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any time.